Page 12 - Occupational Health & Safety, November 2018

HEAD & FACE PROTECTION
Heads Up for Safety
One of the newest consensus standards from the International Safety Equipment Association aims to prevent head injuries and other serious injuries and damage from the impact caused by dropped objects.
BY JERRY LAWS
Each year at the National Safety Council’s recent Congress & Expo events, an OSHA official has given a standing-room-only pre- sentation about the agency’s most frequently
cited standards during the latest fiscal year. The list includes both general industry and construction stan- dards and is very consistent from one year to the next.
OSHA has posted the 10 most frequently cited construction standards in fiscal 2017, as well. Seeing fall protection at the top of the construction list makes sense, but it comes as some surprise that the construc- tion list includes two PPE-related standards, which are highlighted here:
Top 10 Most Frequently Cited Construction Violations—2017 (as of Sept. 30, 2017)
1. Fall Protection — General Requirements (1926.501)
2. Scaffolding (1926.451)
3. Ladders (1926.1053)
4. Fall Protection — Training (1926.503)
5 .Eye and Face Protection (1926.102)
6. Hazard Communication (1910.1200)
7. Head Protection (1926.100)
8. Aerial Lifts (1926.453)
9. General Safety and Health Provisions (1926.20) 10. Fall Protection — Systems Criteria and Prac-
tices (1926.502)
Those two are the focus of this article. The right
PPE is a key to preventing head and eye injuries in any industry, and the process for selecting it begins with a hazard assessment.
You can conduct a hazard assessment for one em- ployee who performs a single task or for groups of employees who perform the same task, such as weld- ers who are exposed to ultraviolet radiation during one type of welding or laboratory workers who are exposed to chemical splashes. The person who con- ducts the hazard assessment must have an intimate knowledge of each task and should directly observe the employees, looking for hazard sources such as high temperatures, chemicals, dust, sources for fall- ing objects and the potential for dropped objects, the potential for struck-by hazards, moving vehicles and equipment, and more.
Dropped Object Prevention:
ANSI/ISEA 121-2018
OSHA standards make it clear that workers must wear
hard hats when overhead hazards are present.
Couple the fact that the head protection standard for construction is frequently violated with the knowl- edge that the most expensive lost-time workers’ com- pensation claims, by far, are those involving the head and central nervous system, according to the council’s “Injury Facts, 2017 Edition,” safety professionals and workers in the construction industry know the im-
portance of using adequate protection.
Another development driving this point home is
the fact that one of the newest consensus standards from the International Safety Equipment Association aims to prevent head injuries and other serious inju- ries and damage from the impact caused by dropped objects. The standard is ANSI/ISEA 121-2018, Ameri- can National Standard for Dropped Object Prevention Solutions, which was developed to set design, testing, and performance criteria for equipment that tethers or contains items such as hand tools, water bottles, etc.
The American National Standards Institute ap- proved the standard’s publication in July 2018. Ac- cording to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 52,000 “struck by falling object” OSHA recordable incidents occur each year in the United States, with 5 percent of all workplace fatalities in 2015 due to strikes by a falling object.
Objects dropped from height can strike with a great deal of force, and the only way to reduce the chance of injury or harm from dropped objects is to prevent these accidental drops. ANSI/ISEA 121-2018 is groundbreaking in that it requires dropped object prevention (DOP) solutions to go through dynamic drop testing to be considered fit for use. Dynamic drop testing involves dropping an object of known weight multiple times. If the DOP device being tested prevents a drop, it passes, and if the device breaks and the object drops, it fails.
Other Important Head & Face
Protection Standards
The most important consensus standards regarding head & face PPE include:
■ ANSI/ISEA Z87.1-2015, American National Standard for Occupational and Educational Personal Eye and Face Protection Devices. The standard pre- scribes performance specifications for products such as eyewear, faceshields, and welding helmets.
■ ANSI/ISEA Z89.1-2014, American National Standard for Industrial Head Protection. This stan-
12 Occupational Health & Safety | NOVEMBER 2018
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