Occupational Health & Safety: Worker safety is always the highest priority on the job site, and head protection is an essential element in providing workers with protection from falling debris, low-hanging objects, and electrical hazards. A hard hat should be worn in all situations where there are head protection hazards.
14 comments:
This article taught me a lot about the proper protection of one of our most important body parts, the head. Surprisingly enough, this has not been taught to me before and being in an environment such as the School of Drama you would think they may have brought this up. We do a lot of things that could cause something to drop on ones head and I think once I was on a call that told me to wear a hardhat. Oddly enough we seem to have a ton of them too that no one chooses to use. Why we are not using these protective hats on our heads is a little unknown to me. Granted 90% of the time we are in situations where our head is not in danger but that 10% of the time that we do not have protection could be fatal.
I have always questioned weather I should be wearing a hard hat during load-ins and strikes. I say this because there are always people working in the air over head. No one is purposefully going to drop anything, but accident always happen. For example a piece of tie line always slips slips off your neck. Personally, I think we should wear hardhats because than that add another layer of safety to our work. However, Having worn hard hats before I know that they get rather annoying and uncomfortable. This is where the conversation of safety vs. comfort begins. Either way, as long as things are safe I am happy.
I didn't know that ANSI standards are required to be reviewed every five years. This does make a lot of sense considering how quickly industries change and possibility that there might be new situations that require different or improved safety equipment. One of the notable changes to the standard was about accessories. This revision specifies that the company manufacturing the accessory is responsible for ensuring and proving that their product will not cause the helmet to fail. What is interesting about that is that it seems to say that in the previous standard it was up to the helmet manufacturer to test any accessory made for their product which seems ridiculous. I fully support the revision of standards like this every few years, not just for hardhats but for any safety equipment. Industry changes so quickly and safety equipment needs to adapt to those changes just a quickly.
Reading this article reminded me that even though we at the school of drama working on theatre and entertainment pieces, we are still on a construction site. When I worked at an architecture firm this summer, we always had to wear a hardhat if we were on construction grounds, no matter if we were under a beam or at the very edge of the property. In theatre we often forget that even though we craft in order to fit our production needs, we need to remember that just because the show opens tomorrow, safety is more important.
Like Philip, I didnt know either that ANSI standards were up for review and a regular basis. I think that that's a good thing as long as they stay on the conservative side of revisions. If the standards are reviewed every five years, that could become a problem if they feel they need drastic change immediately. Institutional memory of safety practices in many places is far longer than 5 years, and may be resistant to that change.
Also, this article got me thinking. Personally the fact that there are safety helmets in the chosky for use whenever anyone is in the steel grid working does not cross my mind often enough. Have those helmets ever been tested for a situation say where someone drops a wrench from the grid onto a helmet?
Head protection is very important and should be taken seriously. If you get hit in the head it is very difficult to come back from potential damage to your brain. Hard hats seem so simple, when they are actually very complex and can easily become less protective. If one thing is damaged or changed on a hard hat, the entire hat could lose its strength. I am surprised that we do not use hard hats in the School of Drama. If something is accidentally dropped from high in the grid onto someone's head, there could be serious problems.
This article was very informative and interesting to read as someone new to the business. I always wondered when to wear a hard hat, because I am slightly clumsy and hit my head on literally everything. I have personally only worn a hard hat once and it was incredibly uncomfortable. The idea of safety over comfort can come into play as comfort creates a better working environment. I so far haven't seen anyone wear a hard hat here, which confuses me. Maybe people will start using them now that we have read this article.
Realistically, every individual working on the Chosky stage should be wearing a hard hat at all times, unless they are on a ladder, in a man lift or in the grid. Theatrical institutions are governed under OSHA General Industry standards and following these regulations are not exactly optional. Below is an exert from: OSHA 3151-12R, Personal Protective Equipment-
“Employers must ensure that their employees wear head protection if any of the following apply:
-Objects might fall from above and strike them on the head;
-They might bump their heads against fixed objects, such as exposed pipes or beams; or
-There is a possibility of accidental head contact with electrical hazards.
Some examples of occupations in which employees should be required to wear head protection include construction workers, carpenters, electricians, linemen, plumbers and pipefitters, timber and log cutters, welders, among many others. Whenever there is a danger of objects falling from above, such as working below others who are using tools or working under a conveyor belt, head protection must be worn. Hard hats must be worn with the bill forward to protect employees properly.
In general, protective helmets or hard hats should do the following:
-Resist penetration by objects.
-Absorb the shock of a blow.
-Be water-resistant and slow burning.
-Have clear instructions explaining proper adjustment and replacement of the suspension and headband.
Hard hats must have a hard outer shell and a shock-absorbing lining that incorporates a headband and straps that suspend the shell from 1 to 1 1/4 inches (2.54 cm to 3.18 cm) away from the head. This type of design provides shock absorption during an impact and ventilation during normal wear.”
As an employer it’s important to be aware of the ANSI standard OSHA site as a guideline for selecting and providing the proper equipment to employees.
Sorry Jason, but Safety will always trump comfort. Or at least it should. While people will often time use the excuse of safety protocols not being comfortable to not use them it's not a valid point. We should be using hard hats whenever there is anyone working overhead but I don't think I would use the ones that we have hanging up in the Chosky because hard hat shells should be replaced every 5 years unless there is trauma to them and the suspension should be changed annually. Joe states that Hard Hats must be worn with the bill forward but I did some research this summer and if they have a revolving arrow symbol on them then they are rated to be worn either forwards or backwards. Most hard hats that you can purchase follow the other stipulations that Joe outlines so I would feel fine using most any hard hat offered. I have my hard hat here and plan on using it whenever I have to go onstage during load in or strike and there is a chance of something falling from above.
Learned all about this in OSHA lat year and then promptly started to notice how many rules we break in the School of Drama. Hardhats is a big one. Would it be difficult to make people wear hard hats during load in? No? Then why don't we? But even if we did... This article points out that hard hats are supposed to inspected regularly, I wonder when was the last time ours were inspected. In other regularly broken rules I learned just a couple days ago that fire curtains are supposed to be kept closed at night while no one is around. I can not think of more than one time our fire curtain in the Chosky was closed in the last few years. The excuse is always that we don't have time, and so far it has worked but eventually someone is likely to get injured, and than I think there is likely to be change.
This article was really interesting because it reminded me that even though we are working in a theatre, we are still faced with the dangers present at any construction site. People working overhead, large amounts of electricity, heavy equipment, etc. Safety standards are a big issue, and after reading this I know how much a hard hat can improve safety. However, while there are many safety benefits, whether or not I would want to wear one during strike/load in is another story...It leads me to question what other things we can do to improve safety and protect against the same dangers as a hard hat would without actually requiring them in the workplace.
Perhaps one of the pitfalls of taking the 30 hours OSHA class here is you start wincing at all the safety violations that occur around here. For all the talk of hard hat usage, or lack thereof, during install calls, perhaps some perspective is necessary. In my limited experience in theater, CMU Drama far and away operates the safest work environment I've been in. I've definitely seen a bunch of not so professional theater go up, where the table saw was an upside down circ saw and grounding pins got ripped out on purpose. I guess my point is, safety is all relative. You can still be one of the best in safety and still not be following code. I'm not saying that makes code violations excusable, but I guess it makes me feel better to know how much worse the working environment could be.
For the record, OSHA also mandates that you can't plug an extension cord into a power strip...
Articles like this always serve to remind me how dangerous our work can be at times. I wonder why head protection is so scarcely worn in theaters during the construction of sets, load in and load out. The other day I was having a conversation during load in about how phone cord tethers on wrenches don't provide as much safety as they could. Thinking about the hazard of dropping a wrench or any tool for that matter from the top of a ladder having little to no protection for the people under me is pretty scary.
This article provides clarification on many of the requirements and best practices when it comes to head protection. Safety glasses are, in many ways, created equal. The most common certification for safety eyewear is ANSI Z87.1. If a piece of eyewear carries that rating, its often considered to be just as good as any other piece of safety eyewear. Hard hats are a much different story. As this article explains, what may be required of one hard hat is much different in another. The particulars for head protection are confusing, as are the rules for usage. One confusion, which this article barely addressed, is the use of stickers on hard hats. Many construction companies require hard hats to have stickers on them to even enter the site, which other companies forbid any sort of sticker as it may weaken the integrity of the PPE. I’d like to see an article address that.
Head protection seems to be an often underutilized for of protection. In many construction industries, you see all employees wearing hard hats. You won’t find every employee wearing safety glasses, ear protection, gloves, or safety shoes, but you’ll almost always find them wearing hard hats. So why don’t we see this practice in the entertainment industry, when often times there are other crewmembers working directly above us with lighting instruments, wrenches, and rigging gear?
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