Two workers at Birdsong Peanuts in Suffolk, VA, were checking on the level of peanuts when one fell into the 50-foot tall storage tank.

A co-worker got a line to the fallen worker. When local firefighters arrived, the employee was submerged 15 feet under the nuts.

The firefighters got a self-contained breathing apparatus to the man. They were concerned he would suffocate because vibrations from passing trucks threatened to shake the contents of the tank.

The unidentified worker was connected to another line and lifted out of the silo. He was able to climb down a ladder on his own and refused further treatment.

No word on whether OSHA will investigate this incident.

OSHA recently fined a Wisconsin grain cooperative $721,000 after a worker was engulfed in frozen soybeans. The employee survived after being trapped for four hours.

In a letter to grain storage operators, OSHA said companies must follow the regulations in the Grain Handling Facilities standard, 1910.272.

Jabin Lakes, a maintenance worker for the City of Middletown, was found dead at the bottom of a manhole. He’d opened the cover to do a routine visual check of sewer lines.

Lakes hadn’t gone below ground. Authorities believe he lost consciousness and fell in.

An autopsy may determine whether Lakes died of exposure to the fumes or from his fall.

One firefighter was lowered into the hole by a rope and was quickly overcome by the same fumes. Two other firefighters standing outside the hole also began to have difficulty breathing.

The firefighters weren’t using breathing apparatus because they thought they were responding to a fall.

The firefighter who was lowered into the hole remains in a hospital intensive care unit. Another firefighter is hospitalized in fair condition, and the third was treated and released.

Initial tests indicate the fumes might have been nitrogen. Further tests will determine what the fumes were.

The manhole is in front of an Air Products and Chemicals facility that supplies oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen to AK Steel’s Middletown Works. Authorities say they can’t rule out that Air Products was the source of the fumes.

Since the incident involved public employees, OSHA won’t investigate.

ERA Valdivia Contractors, Inc., of Chicago, faces $130,300 in OSHA fines for exposing workers to dangerous materials containing lead.

Following a November 2009 inspection, OSHA cited the company with two willful violations ($112,000 in fines) for failing to provide adequate personal protective equipment to employees working in and around lead while performing abrasive blasting and painting.

The company also faces eight serious citations ($18,300 in fines) for failure to:

• ensure workers use respirators in accordance with the conditions of certification
• prohibit use of respirators by employees with facial hair, and
• provide a clean changing area for employees.

ERA Valdivia has 15 days to decide whether to contest the fines.

OSHA has inspected the company 25 times since 1991 and issued numerous willful, serious and repeat violations, including ones for lead hazards.

It’s a fact: Dust, temperature and humidity factor into asthma attacks. But how can you tell if asthma is an ongoing disability?

Here’s what happened in this case:

Hughey Payne worked for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) as a Metro Station manager.

One summer, Payne had trouble breathing because malfunctioning air conditioning in the station created high heat and humidity.

He received a requested transfer to another station.

A year later, the air conditioning in that station stopped working, and Payne became dizzy, faint and very weak one day on the job.

He left work and hasn’t returned since on advice from his doctor that he should avoid the “dusty, underground station,” and that he needs to work in an environment “without temperature extremes to avoid worsening of his asthma.”

Payne filed for and received disability benefits.

An administrative law judge (ALJ) made these findings:

• Payne’s injury arose out of and in the course of his employment
• His physical condition “is medically causally related to the work incident” (malfunctioning air conditioning)
• His exposure to dust and excessive heat while working as a station manager aggravated his asthma, and
• The medical evidence supported Payne’s claim that the work exposure to dust and heat prevented him from returning to work in the Metro tunnels.

His employer, WMATA, appealed.

It presented testimony from a certified industrial hygienist that the dust levels inside the Metro stations were 1/100th of the limit set by OSHA.

The ALJ again ruled in favor of Payne, saying that the hygienist wasn’t a medical doctor and couldn’t determine whether those dust levels were sufficiently low for Payne to return to work.

The case eventually went to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

It noted that one of the doctors in the case was asked: If a person is affected by dust, and a report says a work area meets OSHA air quality standards, would that person be released to go back to work? The doctor replied in that case, it wouldn’t be the dust that was causing the asthma problem.

On top of that, the appeals court found the ALJ had used the wrong burden of proof to determine whether Payne’s disability was ongoing. For that reason, the ALJ couldn’t discount the testimony from the industrial hygienist.

The case has been sent back for a rehearing. (A PDF of the appeals court’s entire opinion can be downloaded here.)

What do you think about this case? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Cite: WMATA v. Payne, DC Court of Appeals, No. 08-AA01207, 4/15/10.

Through the Cell-All initiative directed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T), cell phones could be equipped with sensors capable of detecting deadly chemicals.

How would they work? Cell-All would regularly sniff the surrounding air for certain volatile chemical compounds. If it detects, for example, a chlorine leak, a warning would be sounded for the user.

For potential catastrophes, such as a sarin gas attack, details, including time, location and the chemical compound detected, would be phoned to an emergency operations center.

All that — detection, identification and notification — would happen in less than 60 seconds.

If multiple phones send in an alert, emergency responders could get to the scene sooner and have a better idea where the chemical has already spread.

S&T is working with Qualcomm (a cell phone manufacturer that specializes in miniaturization), NASA and Rhevision Technology (a company that’s developed an artificial nose).

The goal is to get the cost down to a dollar a sensor and to develop it so it doesn’t wear down cell phones batteries.

Even though there have been some successful prototype demonstrations, it may take several years yet for the product to get to market. But Cell-All’s program manager, Stephen Dennis, says just as Bill Gates imagined a computer in every home, he imagines a chemical sensor in every cell phone.

Rescuers say construction workers were using a propane-powered tile cutter inside a tent that had been set up to shield shoppers in the Forks Township, PA, store from dust and debris.

Of the 11 taken to hospitals, three were shoppers and eight others were employees of either the construction contractor or the supermarket.

Ten were treated and released. One person was held overnight in the hospital. When emergency crews arrived, one person had collapsed from the fumes.

Fire officials measured carbon monoxide (CO) levels at 400 parts per million (ppm) in the area around the construction. OSHA’s permissible exposure limit for CO levels is 50 ppm as an 8-hour time-weighted average. Anything above 70 ppm is considered dangerous, and levels above 200 ppm can be life-threatening.

Township Fire Chief Chuck Chapman told the Morning Call that the construction crew should have been using an electric-powered tool to cut the tile since the work was being done indoors. He also said there was no evidence of CO monitoring equipment on site.

For more information on CO in the workplace, click here.

Washington’s Division of Occupational safety and Health (DOSH) fined Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane $8,000 for failing to follow state and national H1N1 flu safety standards.

The Washington State Nurses Association filed a complaint against Sacred Heart. Nurses at the hospital were reporting difficulty in accessing properly fit-tested N-95 masks when treating patients with H1N1 flu.

Specific violations include:

• inadequate written respiratory protection program
• not all employees who wear N-95 respirators were fit tested or trained on an annual basis, and
• no provisions were made for men with facial hair, which can interfere with the seal of N-95 respirators.

And that wasn’t in a large city like New York or Chicago; it was in Allentown, PA, population just over 100,000.

Dr. Jay Talsania told the Allentown Morning Call that this happens after every snowstorm.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) estimates there are 5,740 hospital emergency room injuries a year caused by snowblowers. Talsania says his own experience tells him the number is much higher.

What causes most of these hand injuries? The blower chute clogs and the user, thinking the blades have stopped turning, reaches in to unclog it.

The CPSC reports 19 deaths since 1992 from using snowblowers. Five deaths were caused by carbon monoxide poisoning because someone left the engine running in an enclosed area.

For safe snowblower use, operators should:

• stop the engine and use a long stick to unclog the machine
• keep hands and feet away from moving parts
• never leave the machine running in an enclosed area, and
• add fuel outdoors before starting the machine.

Dr. Talsania adds one more piece of advice: Don’t drink and plow. The doctor says an unusually high number of the injuries happen to people who are intoxicated.

Imagine this: One of your employees complains that a customer’s perfume made her so sick that she needs permanent and total disability benefits. We’re not making this up: It actually happened.

Carol Ervin was an administrative professional at Richland Memorial Hospital in South Carolina. Part of her job was to greet hospital visitors and new patients.

One day she was exposed to perfume worn by a hospital visitor. Ervin claimed that exposure aggravated and exacerbated a preexisting condition (asthma) to such a degree that she became permanently and totally disabled.

The hospital argued this wasn’t a case for workers’ comp benefits because Ervin’s exposure in the workplace was no more than what she experienced in the general environment.

A workers’ comp commissioner who heard her case said Ervin had suffered a compensable injury by an accident arising out of and in the course and scope of her employment because her preexisting condition was aggravated and exacerbated by her job. She was found to be permanently and totally disabled, and her employer was ordered to pay a lump sum award and for related medical treatment for the rest of her life.

However, a workers’ comp Appellate Panel reversed that ruling, which has now been upheld by a trial court and an appeals court.

In the most recent decision by the appeals court, it noted that the South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled that for an injury to have arisen out of employment, the hazard has to be unique to the workplace and not common to the general environment.

Since Ervin testified that she had or could have had reactions to perfume at church, the grocery store, a restaurant and department stores, the hazard was exceedingly common, and the injury didn’t arise out of her employment.

What do you think of the court’s decision? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Ervin v. Richland Memorial Hospital, Court of Appeals of SC, No. 4636, 12/8/09.

The medical community appears to be split on this.

Hand washing does help stop the spread of the common cold, many respiratory infections and viruses that cause diarrhea.

But in a Newsweek article, Arthur Reingold, head of epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley, says there’s virtually no evidence that people can catch the flu virus via physical contact. He says people are more likely to catch the flu from breathing in microscopic particles exhaled by infected people.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, head of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, notes that some animal studies confirm flu is transmitted through the air and not by physical contact.

Among those still promoting hand washing is the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Dr. Anne Schuchat. She supports hand washing because it protects against respiratory and intestinal diseases in general – and H1N1 does cause respiratory and intestinal problems.

What’s the take-home for businesses? First, hand-washing is effective in preventing some illnesses, so there’s no reason not to promote it.

Second, this points to the importance of sending sick employees home, and telling them to stay there until they’re well.

Third, the best step people can take starting next month is to get the H1N1 flu shot, when it becomes available.

DECREASES EXPOSURE

to Swine Flu and other Respiratory Pathogens and Harmful Particles

Concern over the possibility of a swine flu pandemic is focusing people’s interest on strategies they can take to protect themselves. Frequent hand washing is not enough since the virus is easily transmitted via airborne droplets and aerosols; even distant from a cough or sneeze can result in infection. For individuals whose work or personal responsibilities put them into close contact with an infectious person, an effective respirator (face mask) is essential protection.

NIOSH approved filtering facepiece respirators with an N95 level of protection or HIGHER are being recommended by the CDC/National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health for protection against the H1N1 virus.  However, no matter how efficient the filter, if a mask does not fit properly, then gaps between the mask and the face (the face-seal) will allow harmful/infectious particles to enter the wearer’s breathing zone.

Lessons learned from the SARS experience, have inspired Stanley Weinberg, inventor and Chairman & CEO of Wein Products Inc., to design and engineer an adhesion facemask addressing the shortcomings and limitations of conventional respirators that are held in place by straps, rubber bands and nose clips.

The Fitseal^TM Adhesion Filtering Facepiece Particulate Respirator (FFPR) represents a breakthrough in personal respirator technology.  Co-developed by Canadian and American scientists and medical experts, this one-size-fits-all respirator is held in place by medical-grade adhesion technology that conforms and seals to the wearer’s face, thereby significantly reducing inward and outward leakage between the mask and the face.

The Fitseal^TM N99 offers at least 99% filtration efficiency against solid and liquid aerosols that do not contain oil.  The structure and materials are designed with comfort in mind.  It allows for easy breathing as well as clear speech and can be worn comfortably for up to eight hours. It is easy to don and remove, and will not interfere with glasses, or headgear.

Dr. Gabor Lantos, Director, of Personal Protective Equipment for FaceSeal Technologies, notes the level of respiratory protection recommended by authorities has evolved since the SARS outbreak of 2003.  “The general population is not aware that loose fitting surgical masks covering the nose and mouth have significant face-seal leakage factors and are not recommended to protect the wearer against airborne infection.   Dr. Lantos says, “The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) researchers and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have shown that respirator fit is critical to provide essential protection against airborne viruses and bacteria.  The seal between the edge of the respirator and the face (the face-seal) is especially crucial, because leakage through any gaps will allow disease-causing viruses to enter one’s breathing zone inside the respirator….”

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) states that:

“Face-seal leakage is the weak link that limits a respirator’s protection ability.”

(Reference: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, December 30, 2005/54)

FitSeal^TM is the first and only adhesion respirator that has been approved by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and meets additional test requirements for new technology as part of respirator certification.  Additional test requirements included a fit test in a corn oil atmosphere to test the face-seal integrity.

The FitSeal^TM Respirators will be launched in North America at the AIHce (American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Expo, held in Toronto ON, Canada, June 1 – 3, 2009 Booth 1606

1-888-420-6275 / www.facesealtechnologies.com

OSHA is establishing a Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) panel to review a proposed rule on occupational exposure to food flavorings that contain diacetyl.

The SBREFA process allows small businesses to review the proposal and comment before it’s enacted.

Workers in microwave popcorn and candy plants have come down with a sometimes fatal lung disease, bronchiolitis obliterans, after working with diacetyl.

OSHA has also started the process of drafting a rule regarding combustible dust in the workplace.

The agency expects to issue an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to evaluate possible regulations.

Since 1980, more than 130 workers have been killed and more than 780 injured in combustible dust explosions, including 14 deaths at an Imperial Sugar Co. plant in Georgia on Feb. 7, 2008.

You can find more information about diacetyl here, and more about combustible dust here.

The CDC says the virus is susceptible to the prescription antiviral drugs oseltamivir and zanamivir. As part of the public health emergency declared by the U.S., supplies from CDC’s Division of the Strategic National Stockpile are being sent to all 50 states and U.S. territories to help them respond to the outbreak.

What steps can people take to stay healthy and slow the spread of the flu?

• Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.
• Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hand cleaners are also effective.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. The flu virus can spread that way.
• Try to avoid close contact with sick people. Influenza is thought to spread mainly person-to-person through coughing or sneezing of infected people.
• If you get sick, the CDC recommends you stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.

Now might be a good time for businesses to consider how they would be affected if pandemic flu spreads to their area. The federal government has a business checklist available online here.

The CDC has other useful information available for free on the Web, including interim recommendations for facemask and respirator use in certain community settings where swine flu has been detected. The agency has also released interim guidelines for primary and secondary schools as well as childcare facilities.

The CDC’s general page on swine flu is at http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/index.htm.

Severe cases of popcorn lung — also known as bronchiolitis obliterans — have been found in at least five former candy factory workers.

The five worked as candy makers at a now closed Brach’s Candy plant in Chicago, according to Andrew Schneider’s online article.

The plant made butterscotch and butter toffee among other sweets.

One former employee, Doris Stubbs, has to use oxygen almost all the time. Stubbs says some former co-workers have died from breathing problems.

Since the initial reports of employee sickness centered around those working in popcorn plants that used the butter flavoring diacetyl, investigations centered on that industry.

However, some in the safety and health community have questioned whether workers in other food manufacturing plants using diacetyl may also be affected.

The fact that this plant is no longer in operation poses a problem. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) can’t perform a Health Hazards Evaluation on a closed plant.

However, Schneider quotes a Teamster official as saying they are having discussions with OSHA about inspecting candy plants in Tennessee.

OSHA has a National Emphasis Program (NEP) to target popcorn manufacturing facilities for inspection. You can read more about the NEP here.

OSHA has published a new guidance document, Assigned Protection Factors.

In 2006, OSHA revised its Respiratory Protection Standard to add Assigned Protection Factors (APFs) and Maximum Use Concentration (MUC) provisions.

APF means the workplace level of protection that a respirator or class of respirators provides to workers. The higher the APF (5 to 10,000), the greater the protection.

MUC represents the limit at which the class of respirator is expected to provide protection.

The OSHA guide includes a new APF table, information on how to use APFs and MUCs, and the text of the Respiratory Protection Standard.

You can download it for free here (document is a pdf, Adobe Acrobat required).