LANDSCAPE SERVICES' FATAL ACCIDENTS
Other causes 5%
Exposure 16%
Transportation 32%
Falls from elevation 22%
Contact with 25%
small segment of the landscape services worker population. You guessed it: tree work. Take a look at the pie chart above. It is a slightly different representation of the NIOSH/ CDC data, and here's an expla- nation and anecdote for each of the larger slices.
TRANSPORTATION: Employers share a common
concern about getting to and from the worksite safely each day. Many workers show up in the morning in pickup trucks and leave the yards in 10- to- 13-ton vehicles with trailers and obscured rear visibility. Make sure to provide enough training to help them with that driving transition.
CONTACT WITH: This is mostly workers who
are struck by falling trees or pieces falling out of trees. There is a rule of thumb from tree riggers that says for every foot an object falls, it gains a unit of its own weight plus one. That means a 30-pound branch dropped 20 feet hits the ground (or the worker) with a force of 630 pounds.
February 2012 / TOTAL LANDSCAPE CARE 49
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