Fingers and Toes (and how to keep them)

We all want to go home with all our fingers and toes - ask anyone and they will say "of course". So why is that some people don't go home with all their fingers and toes, and some don't go home at all?

I've been involved with safety one way or another for over 20 years as an engineer but in fact, like everyone we are involved with safety every day of our lives. We make risk assessments every time we cross a road, when we get in our car, and when we turn on an electrical appliance.

Big businesses such as those in the Oil & Gas or Mining industries have been striving for a reduction in incidents for many years. Catastrophic incidents hit the company's bottom line: Deepwater Horizon, Samarco, Alpha Piper and of course "Titanic" are all household names and have had major impacts on businesses and the approach to safety. Each of the aforementioned incidents was truly catastrophic in that there were both multiple fatalities and significant financial losses. Each has been studied many times and it is not my intention to go over these or similar incidents.

What I want to talk about is the sort of stuff that typically gets swept under the carpet. Mostly the outcomes are not serious, they are more likely to result in a first aid, and in fact there is a lot of pressure to not even report these incidents at all. The sort of incident I am talking about is hand injuries and the most common cause is "line of fire" or "uncontolled release of energy".

What am I talking about? I'm talking about using hand tools and slipping or getting caught between the spanner and some part of the structure being worked on. I'm talking about using a hammer and missing or glancing off. In fact there are a myriad of different ways in which one can suffer a hand injury. It is my experience that such injuries are far more likely to occur when something is being taken apart than put together (and let me assure you that I have lost fingernails even though I was wearing the "correct" gloves). The primary reasons for this are that nuts and bolts become corroded or the threads filled with dust and dirt, which adds to the friction or there is a problem with access.

It should be noted that not every nut and bolt is difficult to remove. Where there is good access the use of "rattle" guns generally reduces the incidence of injury. The problems mostly arise where there isn't good access. And this brings me to the main point of this article.

It is possible to predict just by looking at a piece of plant where hand injuries are most likely to occur. Unfortunately, by the time a mechanical fitter is looking at the plant it is too late. Decisions made when the plant was being designed have built in hazards for maintenance workers. What is more, in this day and age of 3D modelling it is relatively easy to design plant to be maintained. In addition to reducing hand injuries the cost of maintenance should also be reduced as the time required to undertake maintenance will be less in a plant designed to be maintained than in one that has not been.

So if you happen to be in the business of designing plant in whatever field it may be in, can I recommend that you give some thought to the crew who will maintain it down the track?