Amputations
cmonforton | March 21, 2016OSHA issued a report last week summarizing the agency’s first year of experience with its new severe injury reporting rule. During 2015, employers from 25 states reported to OSHA more than 7,600 incidents in which workers required overnight (or longer) hospitalizations, and suffered nearly 2,650 work-related amputations. The numbers themselves are striking, but something’s more astonishing: before last year, employers weren’t required to report these serious incidents to OSHA. This change may be the biggest overall advance in occupational health and safety in decades.
Without this regulation…
cmonforton | January 27, 2016Whole digits, tips of fingers, and parts of a thumb. These are body parts of Tyson Foods' employees which were severed last year in 10 of the company's plants. The details are made possible by a new OSHA regulation that took effect on January 1, 2015. The regulation requires employers to report within 24 hours any work-related incident that results in an amputation or hospitalization.
After nearly a year on the books, I was curious to find out what just a single large employer had reported to federal OSHA. I picked Tyson Foods. It has more than more than 400 facilities in 30 US states and it…
cmonforton | May 6, 2015I’ve heard dozens and dozens of examples of workers getting seriously injured on-the-job. Many times the tale ends with a remark like this:
“and the company never told OSHA.”
There was the guy on a moving crew in Milwaukee whose foot was crushed in a faulty freight elevator. A day laborer in Cincinnati who lost part of his finger in a chain saw. A painter in Houston who suffered a fractured pelvis and leg when his scaffold collapsed.
In every case, whether the worker himself or a co-worker told the story, they thought it especially important to tell me this: neither the boss nor anybody…
cmonforton | September 15, 2014“OSHA nunca llego.” [Translation: "OSHA never came."] That was the disappointed phrase I heard from a worker who told me about his on-the-job injury. He was a temp worker hired by a moving company to relocate a small manufacturing company. The worker’s shoe got caught in a faulty industrial dumbwaiter and his toes were smashed. He was patched up at a local urgent care clinic, but developed a serious infection a couple of weeks later. Gangrene set in and his toes had to be amputated. He still suffers pain and walks with a limp.
The fact that “OSHA nunca llego” surprised this worker. Like the…
chrisdrudge | January 3, 2009Matthews MG. Autoamputation of infant's finger by knitted mitten: a forgotten hazard. Br Med J (Clin Res Ed). 1986 Apr 26;292(6528):1107.
Perhaps everybody but me knows this, but parents, don't leave knitted mittens on your infants when you put them to bed. It may sound bizarre, but it can lead to them losing fingers.
chrisdrudge | February 10, 2008Volkmer BG, Maier S. Successful penile replantation following autoamputation: twice! Int J Impot Res. 2002 Jun;14(3):197-8.
The particularly impressive part for me is that he was able to get it up even after the second replantation.
In related news, check out this fascinating review article on genital self-mutilation.