Summary Statement
Describes 3 case studies in which a hardhat saved a worker from serious injury.
Jan/Feb 2001
A highway worker
was securing a load of poles, tightening the load binder when the chain
broke releasing the bar that hit him squarely on the head. Fortunately,
he was wearing a hard-hat, which absorbed the impact and cracked down
the center. "The worker's neck took some of the shock but not the
potentially deadly blow he would have received to the unprotected skull,"
wrote the worker's training and safety administrator. (Hard-hat from Bullard,
www.bullard.com.)
An overhead crane
worker was struck on the head by a 25-pound trolley controller as he worked
on a Virginia Power project. The controller fell 10 feet before hitting
the worker, but his hard-hat protected him from a serious injury even
though the impact far exceeded the designed capacity of the hard-hat A
few stitches were all that was needed to get the worker back on the job.
(Hard-hat from Mine Safety Appliances Company.)
A 12-foot piece of
3-inch metal pipe weighing 100 pounds fell from a pole, striking a worker
on the head. The worker, who was on the ground with his back to the pole,
was dazed and sustained a laceration on the neck and bruises to the body
from being knocked down. "If not wearing a hard hat, the injuries
could have been fatal," wrote his safety director. (Hard-hat from
Bullard)
Vern, an employee of a Troy, N.Y., construction company, was sweeping debris from a road construction project when the side-view mirror of a passing truck struck him on the head. Vern was wearing a hard-hat "The doctor at the emergency room said the hard-hat, which split in two, took the impact and saved Vern's life," reported the company's safety director. (Hard-hat from Mine Safety Appliances Company, www.msanet.com.)
