A total of 2153 accidents were notified to HazardCo in 2019 – 592 of these were finger and hand related. Given the frequency, we want to look at the impact of these injuries and how to manage them better.
The types of injuries
There are a fair few ways these occur on-site. The most common include:
- Crushed hands and fingers
- Cuts and punctures
- Burns
- Electric shock
The causes are often the result of equipment malfunctions, falling objects, compression between objects, electrical errors, and worker errors.
The long-term impact
The long-term impact of a hand injury ranges from minor to severe. A minor injury could mean changes in grip strength and reduced range of motion of the fingers. In more serious cases, a worker may lose the ability to use their hand or suffer the loss of a finger.
The education element
Awareness is everything. You can educate your staff in the following ways:
- Hold safety demos for all dangerous machinery
- When holding toolbox meetings, stress hand and finger safety awareness
- Issue personal protective equipment (PPE)
This is more than just talking to your workers, as a leader, you need to give your workers real-life examples of incidents that have life-changing effects on workers: their health, finances, family and livelihood.
Once workers have the knowledge, it’s up to them to maintain hand safety awareness. Team leaders, however, need to ensure they have the right tools in place to monitor their compliance.
Leading the way in safe practices to reduce the number of hand finger injuries on site.
