Promoting
Hand Safety
We use our hands for virtually every task at work and, as a result, they are commonly injured on the job. A serious finger or hand injury can have a huge negative impact on your ability to work and overall quality of life, so it is critical to keep your hands out of harm’s way at work.
Hand injuries are the second-leading type of injury on the job. On average, 1 million workers are treated in an emergency room for hand injuries annually, and those injuries translate to 110,000 lost-time cases each year. Lacerations are the most common type of hand injury, followed by crush injuries and fractures.
While gloves are the most common form of PPE in the workplace, about 70% of workers who experienced a hand injury were not wearing gloves. And the 30% of workers who sustained a hand injury while wearing gloves were using gloves that were damaged or inadequate for the work task.
Follow these safe work practices to minimize the risk of hand injuries:
■ Use tools to remove your hands from areas that could injure your fingers or hands, such as machinery pinch points or moving blades.
■ Never put your hands in an area where you cannot see them.
■ Always wear the proper gloves for the work task and understand the limitations of different gloves you use on the job.
■ Avoid using fixed, open-blade knives. Instead, use safety knives that limit the length of the exposed blade. Such knives also have a safety feature that retracts the blade when pressure is let off the handle or switch.
■ Never conduct maintenance on an energized piece of equipment. Lock out and tag out the equipment to ensure it cannot start while you are working on it.
■ Exercise caution when using any tool that can easily penetrate the skin.
***The PSI Chapter thanks PSI Safety Committee Chair Jerry Sjogren
of E.L. Harvey & Sons for providing the information
for this safety message.***
