Her husband came home from work every day at the asbestos plant, covered in “fairy dust” and hugged her and the kids. Now she lay dying of mesothelioma – a rare cancer caused by asbestos exposure. She wanted to prevent others from suffering as she had, without realizing her risk until it was too late.
In the middle of the night, two men struggled to change the tire of a huge transport vehicle stranded near Dorval Airport. The boss was under the rear axle, half-way through the lift, when the vehicle began to shake. Luckily his apprentice was paying attention.
A 41-year-old man in England was seriously injured – but thankfully survived – after he was pulled into the rotating parts of a machine that was not locked out, and from which the built-in guard had been removed.
Abby is a self-employed doula and part of what is known as the “grey fleet”: workers who drive a vehicle during the course of their work but not as their work. Self-employed workers face the same road safety issues as other people who drive while working for employers, so they have to know the risks and take the necessary precautions.
Here in Vancouver BC, more than 3,500 cyclists commute to work downtown every morning. A video from the bigger city of Boston shows how they deal with the combo of cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers.
Tires can explode with deadly force – as you will see in these videos. A guy at my local coffee shop told me about his experience with an exploding tire when he was a mobile mechanic for broken-down trucks in Ontario and Quebec. A driver destroyed his own tire by driving more than 500 kilometres with a locked brake – and this led to a big explosion during the attempted repair. At first the mechanic didn’t realize how much the tire was damaged, and it exploded and flew six feet when he was inflating it to see where the leak was.
Most room cleaners are women, many are immigrants, and their injury rate is the highest among hotel workers. Ergonomic hazards are a reality when you’re pushing carts, making beds, lifting, and bending – along with the risks of risk of slips, trips, and falls.
“Once a person is completely under the surface of the grain, ‘drowning’ happens quickly, as the grain and grain dust quickly enter the nose and mouth, making it impossible to breathe,” says Nicole Hornett, a farm safety coordinator with the Alberta government. “The further someone is buried into the grain, the harder it is to pull them back out, countering the force, friction and the additional weight of the grain.”
In the US, a government program – named in memory of 25 dead miners – is offering $1-million in safety training grants for mining employers. In 2010, 48 miners died in the US and no miners died in BC.
A writer needs a good chair. That was the word from a university professor I had 20 years ago. Without a good chair, he said, writers may sit awkwardly, overstraining their muscles. Doing this for many years can lead to repetitive strain injuries.
