Category: Safety
HomeSafety

Category: Safety

Do it without thinking.

From our Safety Manager, Susan Dunlap.

I received this text at 4:11 am on Sunday morning: “Thank you for teaching me.”

Usually a middle-of-the-night text means bad news. But this story has a happy ending. The RUS supervisor who texted me was referring to a Red Cross CPR/First Aid class that he took at our home office on December 26, 2018. On Saturday, January 11, he used what he had learned to perform CPR on his 21-year-old nephew.

“He didn’t have a pulse,” the supervisor wrote to me. “I drug him out of the chair and started compressions and blowing air in him. I didn’t count or anything. I just did it without thinking.”

Thanks to the employee’s quick response, his nephew’s pulse resumed before emergency personnel arrived on the scene. “I was going to stay up here this weekend (on the job site),” the supervisor said. “But I think God sent me home instead.”

To this employee, I want to express my sincerest appreciation:

  1. Thank you for paying attention in CPR class.
  2. Thank you for remembering what you learned.
  3. Thank you for taking action in an extremely stressful situation.

This simple text sums up why I love my job. Let us all take the skills we learn in workplace safety training home to our families, each and every day. We want to be ready when our loved ones need us the most. And in the words of the RUS supervisor, do it without thinking.

Who is going the extra mile at work?

Most every industry has a version of a safety walk-through. But when the tone of the walk-through resembles a military inspection, the purpose of promoting safe work practices can be lost. Employees often resent the “gotcha” approach to infractions, instead of helpful suggestions to improve safety.

Part of the job is for everyone to be on the lookout for potential errors, but everyone should also take notice when they see best practices at work. Safety reports should include what the crew is doing right, along with how they can improve.

This photograph tells a great story. This crane operator is cleaning a stain on the floor of the powerhouse (with a scrub brush) during a break in his crane operating duties. No one asked him to clean up this spot. It needed attention, so he attended to it. This crane operator’s action needs to be the main focus of the next safety meeting. He exemplifies a best practice at work – let’s say thank you.

I once attended a safety meeting where there were twelve people in the room. The topic of conversation was safety glasses, one of the most important pieces of PPE on a job site. But the specifics of the safety violation made me wonder if we were missing the point. At the end of the day, a millwright was exiting the building. A safety manager wrote up a citation because the employee removed his safety glasses as he walked to his vehicle. There was no signage requiring PPE in job site parking lot, and no other crew members were familiar with this rule. Can you imagine how that employee felt about safety at that moment?

There is no question that a safety walk-through needs to uncover unsafe and potentially unsafe working conditions. If we foster a good working relationship between the employees and the safety professionals, then the employees will point out their concerns and even suggest the best corrective actions. We all need to be on the same side when it comes to safety. And we need to thank the crane operators and the other pro-active employees on our job sites for a job well done!

Be Ready for Snake Season

One of our hydro mechanics recently came across a banded water snake (also known as a Southern water snake). The mechanic opened the draft tube door to inspect the parking ledge for the runner – and realized he had some company in there. At RUS, we have a specific training module on snakes that is a required part of our new hire orientation. Making employees familiar with the types of snakes that are common to our work area, and teaching the crew what to do when they come across a snake, can keep a run-in from becoming a recordable.

Snakes are most active between April and October, when warm weather brings them out to mate. In the Southeast, the venomous snakes that our crews are most likely to encounter include rattlesnakes, copperheads, and cottonmouths (water moccasins). And although most people don’t like snakes, the snake diet of insects and rodents makes them helpful to have around. We teach our crews that snakes are not aggressive, and will only bite if they are startled or feel threatened. But venomous or not, a bite from a snake really hurts!

These common sense precautions can make everyone safer:

1) Never pick up or attempt to move a snake.

2) If you see a snake, back away slowly; a snake’s striking distance is about half the total length of its body.

3) Wear leather gloves if you have to handle debris, lumber, rocks or other objects where a snake could be hiding.

If an employee is bitten:

1) Call the onsite emergency number (or 911) right away. If the bite is from a venomous snake, time is of the essence for administering anti-venom.

2) Remember the color and shape of the snake. These details can help medical personnel treat a bite.

3) Keep the bitten person calm, which slows the spread of poisonous venom. Have the person lay or sit still, with the bite level and below the heart. Cover the bite with a clean, dry dressing until medical personnel arrive.

Snakes should not be killed when they are found; many are protected as endangered species.  In the case of the banded water snake, it will flatten its body when it feels threatened in order to appear larger. This snake also emits a foul musk, and bites repeatedly, slashing sideways to tear the flesh of its attacker. Letting the snake have time to return to the water (which is what the RUS mechanic did) is the safest and smartest course of action for everyone.