By Steven Geigle, CSHM - July 2006

The National Safety Management publishes a monthly newsletter called the NSMS Digest. It contains valuable information for safety and health professionals and I encourage you to surf over to the NSMS website (nsms.us) and check it out. I found the articles below in one of the recent Digests.

Safety Training Strategies – Dress for Success

Raising employees' awareness of the importance of wearing proper personal protective equipment could be reinforced by trying this training exercise. Announce and introduce a game to play at your next safety called "Dress for Success" where two employees choose a card which states a job task.

The employees then have to put on the protective equipment that is appropriate for the chosen task. They must choose from several options of PPE. The employee that puts on the proper gear first wins the game and receives a small prize. Of course it is explained to the participants that in a real life work situation speed is not the goal but having the appropriate, proper fitting protective equipment is. The speed component does make the game interesting and fun for the employees! It is amazing how competitive it gets!

The employees learn about the importance of protecting themselves and how to take responsibility for this. They also learn about the different types of personal protective equipment that are available.

Safety Training Strategies – Balloon Squeeze

Here is a way to bring interest in conduct excavation awareness training which was created at the Chemtura (Taft/Los Angeles, California plant) to involve the employees in the training.

Construction work can be hazardous; and work involving trenching and excavating activities tends to be the most hazardous in the industry. Cave-ins pose the greatest risk and are much more likely than other excavation-related accidents to result in worker fatalities. Most people are killed in cave-ins by suffocation or by being crushed. Death can occur when pressing weight of soil forces internal organs up into the chest cavity, preventing the lungs from functioning.

The class could possibly better understand the effect a cave-in can have on the human body if you use some type of demonstration. Try purchasing some balloons and fill them with 1/4 water and distribute them to the class.

At first, the class may think that they were going to have a water balloon fight and start looking for the balloons that were the largest in the bunch. Once all the balloons have been distributed, asked the class to take their balloons in one hand and squeeze the bottom which forced the water to move from the bottom of the balloon to the top.

Some people have a misconception of what happens in a cave-in, this gives them the opportunity to experience and see that the water in the balloon represents there internal organs and how they are forced upward (in reality--into the chest cavity, preventing the lungs from functioning). The majority of your class will be astonished. Most of they probably thought it was the lack of oxygen and the soil getting into the persons mouth that suffocated them. They probably never fully understood the mechanics of a cave-in and how the force is distributed to the human body. They will after this hands-on demonstration. It's always a benefit when you can have class participation; just make sure you collect all the water balloons after the demonstration is done!