Page 18 - Occupational Health & Safety, July 2018

INDUSTRY UPDATE
their policies to meet the unique needs of their community.”
Safe-in-Sound Award Partnership Expanded
ing fatalities nationwide totaled 658, a 6.1 percent decrease from 2016. This was the second-highest number of deaths in the past five years, even though recreational boating injuries fell 9.4 percent year over year, from 2,903 to 2,629, and the total number of acci- dents fell 3.9 percent, from 4,463 to 4,291.
“Although these lower numbers are encouraging, I ask those who boat to continue to do so responsibly, especially by donning a life jacket,” said Capt. Scott Johnson, chief of the Office of Auxiliary and Boating Safety at Coast Guard Headquarters. “Wearing a life jacket is the single most important thing you can do to save your life or the life of someone you care about.”
The USCG report showed that in 2017 the fatality rate was 5.5 deaths per 100,000 registered recreational vessels—a 6.8 percent decrease from last year’s fatality rate of 5.9 deaths per 100,000 reg- istered recreational vessels. Also in the report:
■ Property damage totaled approximately $46 million.
■ Alcohol continued to be the leading known contributing factor in fatal boating accidents.
■ Operator inattention, improper lookout, operator inexperi- ence, machinery failure, and alcohol use were the top five primary contributing factors in accidents.
Johnson also warned boaters about the impacts of alcohol use, citing a case in Connecticut where two inebriated people aboard a 32-foot boat were killed when their boat crashed into a breakwater. “Alcohol was the leading factor in 19 percent of deaths,” he said. “It is also a completely preventable factor – never boat under the influence.”
Where the cause of death was known, 76 percent of fatal boat- ing accident victims drowned. Of those drowning victims with re- ported life jacket usage, 84.5 percent were not wearing a life jacket. “As a career Coast Guardsman, where it is my mission to prevent accidents and save lives on the water, it is extremely frustrating to see cases where something as simple as wearing a life jacket would have made the difference for life over death for 84.5 percent of the drowning cases,” Johnson said.
Also, where boating instruction was known, 81 percent of deaths occurred on vessels where the operator had not received boating safety instruction. The most common vessel types in- volved in reported accidents were open motorboats, personal watercraft, and cabin motorboats. The vessel types with the high- est number of fatalities were on open motorboats, kayaks, and personal watercraft.
The Coast Guard also reminded boaters to boat responsibly on the water: Wear a life jacket, take a boating safety course, attach the engine cut-off switch, get a free vessel safety check, and boat sober.
NIOSH Studying Condition of Stockpiled
Respirators, Surgical Gowns
Millions of respirators and surgical gowns are in storage around the country, stockpiled for use during infectious disease epidem- ics such as avian flu or Ebola. But after years in storage, will those items still protect the wearers as they should? A NIOSH team is try- ing to answer this question through a three-year study at stockpiles around the country, with sample items from them sent back to a NIOSH lab in Morgantown, W.Va., for testing.
Lee A. Greenawald, Ph.D., a physical scientist and project of- ficer with the agency’s National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory, provided a snapshot of the project, now in its second
NIOSH announced that a new partnership has expanded the reach of the Safe-in-Sound Excellence in Hearing Loss Prevention Award that started in 2008 through a partnership of the federal agency and the National Hearing Conservation Association. Now, the partner- ship includes the Council for Accreditation in Occupational Hear- ing Conservation (http://www.caohc.org/).
With the award, the three partners honor those that have con- tributed to the prevention of noise-induced hearing loss and tin- nitus through effective practices or innovations directed to those who are exposed to noise at work.
CAOHC was formed in the 1960s as the Intersociety Commit- tee on Guidelines for Noise Exposure Control. “Since its forma- tive years, the Committee encouraged the participation of multiple professional organizations with an interest in preserving the hear- ing of American workers. Their mission is to advance best practice in occupational hearing conservation, which is in alignment with the goals of Safe-in-Sound,” NIOSH’s May 29 announcement said.
It said the award “has facilitated the extension of successful hearing loss prevention activities and strategies to workers not tra- ditionally considered in typical workplace hearing loss prevention programs (e.g. musicians, military personnel, workers in services and construction).”
The 2018 deadline for award nominations is July 13. There is a new, streamlined nomination process along with that deadline. “Consider who is striving for excellence and creating innovation in their hearing loss prevention programs in your day-to-day en- counters, and send an email to nominations@safeinsound.us to get a nomination started,” the announcement said.
Recreational Boating Fatalities Fell in 2017: USCG
The U.S. Coast Guard reported May 29 that 2017 recreational boat-
16 Occupational Health & Safety | JULY 2018
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