Important information shared at Slips, Trips and Falls presentation

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Big thanks to Richard Ayuen, VP & General Manager SureWerx, who lead a very informative session today on “Slips, Trips and Falls” (STF). SureWerx is a valued sponsor and supporter of the EHSCBC. SureWerx was founded in 1957, and until 2009 was primarily a tool and equipment business.  In 2009 SureWerx noticed a greater demand for safety products, as required by a greater awareness and increased cost to businesses of these types of injuries. SureWerx has expanded their product offerings to include Safety Products.

Richard’s presentation included SureWerx’s 4 pillars to minimize any STF:

  1. Awareness & Education: outline the impact of STFs to the employees & the organization and educate them on how to work safely. It’s important to help encourage a safety culture where employees should feel empowered to take ownership and action to make a difference by cleaning spills immediately, identify hazards or high risk areas and to help keep all pathways and walkways clear.
  2. Working environment: Permanent identification of all hazards and the ability to temporarily shut down or identify hazards
  3. PPE Equipment: educate employees to the right equipment and proper fit for size and weight
  4. Ownership & Leadership: create the environment, lead by example, walk the talk by putting on PPE and safety equipment when on a job site. It is law now under sec 4.29 of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulations.

Richard shared some very interesting country-wide statistics:

  • Annually, more than 42000 workers are injured due to falls
  • 66% are due to same level falls and 34% due from heights (source: Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety)
  • Falls are 4th leading cause of industrial deaths. In BC close to 1000 in manufacturing suffer fall injuries, equating to 49,000 lost workdays and $22M in claim costs.

Bottom line impact is the loss of personnel resulting in loss of productivity, loss of key knowledge as well as the additional stress on other employees.

STPs are Preventable!

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you do your own organizational safety audits:

  • Keep walking surfaces clean & clutter free
  • Stairways must have handrails, use reflective tape to mark the top and bottom, remove all unsecured or worn rugs/carpets
  • Look for exposed cables and wires – run cables under carpets or behind walls, avoid running them across walkways
  • Ensuring employees are wearing proper footwear for indoor and out
  • Good lighting in stairways and outdoors
  • Labelling hazards to remind people to be safe. (see above)

WorkSafe BC will soon be rolling out a Slips Trips and Falls prevention awareness, incorporating educational tools, labels and stickers at no cost so you can use them with messages for your facilities.