Pull
together everyone in your household and make a plan. Walk through your home and
inspect all possible exits and escape routes. Households with children should
consider drawing a floor plan of your home, marking two ways out of each room,
including windows and doors. Also, mark the location of each smoke alarm. For
easy planning, download the FPW escape plan grid (PDF*, 464 KB). This is a great
way to get children involved in fire safety in a non-threatening way.
Make
sure that you have at least one smoke alarm on every level of your home.
Everyone
in the household must understand the escape plan. When you walk through your plan,
check to make sure the escape routes are clear and doors and windows can be opened
easily.
Choose an outside meeting place (i.e.
neighbor's house, a light post, mailbox, or stop sign) a safe distance in front
of your home where everyone can meet after they've escaped. Make sure to mark
the location of the meeting place on your escape plan.
Go
outside to see if your street number is clearly visible from the road. If not,
paint it on the curb or install house numbers to ensure that responding emergency
personnel can find your home.
Have everyone memorize
the emergency phone number of the fire department. That way any member of the
household can call from a neighbor's home or a cellular phone once safely outside.
If there are infants, older adults or family
members with mobility limitations make sure that someone is assigned to assist
them in the fire drill and in the event of an emergency. Assign a backup person
too, in case the designee is not home during the emergency.
If
windows or doors in your home have security bars, make sure that the bars have
quick-release mechanisms inside so that they can be opened immediately in an emergency.
Quick-release mechanisms won't compromise your security - but they will increase
your chances of safely escaping a home fire.
Tell
guests or visitors to your home about your family's fire escape plan. When staying
overnight at other people's homes, ask about their escape plan. If they don't
have a plan in place, offer to help them make one. This is especially important
when children are permitted to attend "sleepovers" at friends' homes.
Be fully prepared for a real fire: when a smoke
alarm sounds, get out immediately. Residents of high-rise and apartment buildings
may be safer "defending in place."
Once
you're out, stay out! Under no circumstances should you ever go back into a burning
building. If someone is missing, inform the fire department dispatcher when you
call. Firefighters have the skills and equipment to perform rescues.
Practice your home
fire escape plan twice a year, making the drill as realistic as possible.
Allow
children to master fire escape planning and practice before holding a fire drill
at night when they are sleeping. The objective is to practice, not to frighten,
so telling children there will be a drill before they go to bed can be as effective
as a surprise drill.
It's important to determine
during the drill whether children and others can readily waken to the sound of
the smoke alarm. If they fail to awaken, make sure that someone is assigned to
wake them up as part of the drill and in a real emergency situation.
If
your home has two floors, every family member (including children) must be able
to escape from the second floor rooms. Escape ladders can be placed in or near
windows to provide an additional escape route. Review the manufacturer's instructions
carefully so you'll be able to use a safety ladder in an emergency. Practice setting
up the ladder from a first floor window to make sure you can do it correctly and
quickly. Children should only practice with a grown-up, and only from a first-story
window. Store the ladder near the window, in an easily accessible location. You
don't want to have to search for it during a fire.
Always
choose the escape route that is safest – the one with the least amount of
smoke and heat – but be prepared to escape through toxic smoke if necessary.
When you do your fire drill, everyone in the family should practice crawling low
on their hands and knees, one to two feet above the ground. By keeping your head
low, you'll be able to breathe the "good" air that's closer to the floor.
It's important to practice crawling on your hands
and knees, not your bellies, as some poisons produced by smoke are heavier than
air and settle to the floor.
Closing doors on
your way out slows the spread of fire, giving you more time to safely escape.
In some cases, smoke or fire may prevent you
from exiting your home or apartment building. To prepare for an emergency like
this, practice "sealing yourself in for safety" as part of your home
fire escape plan. Close all doors between you and the fire. Use duct tape or towels
to seal the door cracks and cover air vents to keep smoke from coming in. If possible,
open your windows at the top and bottom so fresh air can get in.
Reproduced
from NFPA's Fire Prevention Week Web site, www.firepreventionweek.org.
©2003 NFPA
OSHA
Information for SARS in the Workplace
OSHA has developed this
Information Regarding Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) to provide relevant
and timely information regarding this illness to employers, employees, and other
interested parties. OSHA may update this information as additional information
concerning SARS becomes available.
While the information references enforceable
OSHA standards, the information itself is not a new standard or regulation, and
it creates no new or independent legal obligations. The Occupational Safety and
Health Act requires employers to comply with hazard-specific safety and health
standards. In addition, pursuant to Section 5(a)(1) of the OSHAct (the "General
Duty Clause"), employers must provide their employees with a workplace free
from recognized hazards likely to cause death or serious physical harm. Employers
can be cited for violating the General Duty Clause if they do not take reasonable
steps to abate or address such a recognized hazard. However, the failure to implement
the information is not, in itself, a violation of the General Duty Clause. OSHA
citations can only be based on standards, regulations, and the General Duty Clause.
SARS:
Protecting Workers [PowerPoint Presentation]
OSHA
Ergonomic Solutions: Grocery Warehousing eTool - Index for Grocery Warehousing
Grocery
warehouse operations perform three main functions: receiving bulk goods from suppliers;
order picking to select desired goods from within the warehouse; and shipping
goods to the customers. This eTool* describes example ergonomic hazards and solutions
related to Order Picking, which accounts for a large number of musculoskeletal
disorders (MSDs). The areas addressed are Transport,
Storage,
Packaging,
and Work
Practice.
This eTool emphasizes Traditional
Order Picking, which is the most common. However, many of the examples are
also applicable to the other types of Order Picking: Flow
Through, Belt
Picking and Cross-Docking.
*eTools are web-based products that provide guidance information for developing
a comprehensive safety and health program. They include recommendations for good
industry practice that often go beyond specific OSHA mandates. As indicated in
the disclaimer,
eTools do not create new OSHA requirements.
Job-Related
Injuries Decline in 2001
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
(BLS) recently reported that there were 500,000 fewer job-related injuries in
2001 than in 2000. In the construction industry, the total number of Occupational
Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recordable cases fell from 8.3 per 100
full-time workers in 2000 to 7.9 in 2001. Lost workday cases fell slightly from
4.1 per 100 full-time workers to 4.0. The aggregate incidence rates of MCAA members
are typically well below BLS incidence rates.
Tips for Marking Permanent Aisles
OSHA regulations are not very specific when it comes to requirements
for a facility's permanent aisles and passageways. By making general statements,
OSHA allows employers the freedom to set up aisles to best accommodate the functions
of their facility. The following are some basic guidelines that you are required
to meet.
Aisle Marking
The regulations require that permanent
aisles and passageways must be marked, but do not define how it should be done.
A common method for marking is by using yellow paint or stripes. OSHA designates
yellow as the "caution" color, to be used for making physical hazards such as
stumbling, falling or tripping. Painted yellow lines are usually recognized as
the most convenient and inexpensive way to mark aisles since the lines normally
last several years before repainting is necessary. Where painted floor markings
are impractical, other methods that can be used include marking pillars, powder
stripping, flags, traffic cones or barrels.
ANSI Z535.2 Safety Color
Code also defines "safety yellow" as the identification of CAUTION. It requires
the use of solid yellow, yellow and black stripes, or yellow and black checkers
for maximum contrast with the particular background and it designates the combination
of black and yellow as the preferred method for traffic markings.
Aisle Width
There is not a "one-size-fits-all" width for aisles and
passageways in the OSHA standard, but there are requirements in some specific
instances. These include requirements that aisles be at least three feet wide
inside storage rooms containing flammable and combustible liquids, and that 28
inches is the minimum width for emergency exit access.
OSHA's general
requirement for aisles and passageways is that "sufficient safe clearances" must
be provided where mechanical equipment is used. The width will vary depending
upon how the aisle is utilized in the workplace, as aisles that forklift trucks
or other mechanical equipment use will need to be wider than aisles for pedestrian
traffic.
top
The
National Killer and Life Saving Efforts
Sudden cardiac death
(SCD) is an equal opportunity killer. It can strike anyone regardless of age,
race, or gender. SCD accounts for about 250,000 death in the US alone. That, combined
with another 230,000 cardiac deaths, makes up the nearly half a million fatalities
due to cardiovascular disease. In short, this makes heart disease the primary
cause of death in the US.
The leading causes of SCD include mechanical
injury to the heart, occlusion of the coronary vessels, effects of certain drugs,
and inadvertent electrical stimuli to the heart. Each of these forces the heart
to stop vital mechanical function and merely fibrillate, or result in quivering
and ineffective contractions of the ventricles. Immediately, this renders the
victim unconscious and in a full cardiac arrest.
|  If
defibrillation occurs within two minutes of a cardiac arrest, the victim can have
a greater than 80% chance of living. Automated External Defibrillator's (AED's)
are the solution to this problem. They are fail-safe, highly effective, liability-free,
lightweight, easy to use, and maintenance-free.
|
For more than 30 years, CPR has has been used in these situations. However, CPR
along prolongs life, rather than saving it. Because CPR can artificially circulate
only up to 30% of the body's original blood volume, restoration of normal circulation
is necessary. That's where defibrillation comes in.
Public Access
Defibrillation (PAD) means having AED's readily available for public use. Chicago
Airport System HeartSave Project at O'Hare and Midway airports have demonstrated
how well this works. Since June 1999, nine of 11 people saved there have been
saved through the use of CPR and AED's. President Clinton has issued an Executive
Order to have AED's in all Federal buildings. Is there one in your workplace?
Call Pryme Safety Services to start your company's life saving program.
National Safety Council's CPR & AED use courses are available at your worksite
through our National Safety Council Training Agency staff.
Safety
News