Everyday there are hundreds of employees are affected by injuries sustained on the job—many of them are extremely severe and may even lead to fatalities.
According to the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada (AWCBC), a whopping 251,508 cases of work-related injuries were reported in the year 2017, with an addition of 951 more cases that resulted in fatalities. As the jobs are getting more complex, the number of employees getting injured has only grown over the past years—with an increase of nearly 5% in 2017, as compared to 2016.
These statistics are the reason why small and large businesses need to adopt preventative measures to boost their workplace safety.
Be on the lookout for these 3 common workplace injuries that can put your employees’ safety and lives at risk.
Falling From Heights
One of the major causes of workplace injuries is falling from heights. These injuries commonly occur in warehousing and construction related jobs. However, workers at retail stores who maintain shelves, painters, and other jobs that require climbing up the ladders, stools, and other equipment are also at risk. Falls can lead to severe fractures, sprains, tissue ruptures, lacerations, and head injuries.
Construction workers and exterior window cleaners need to be extra careful with the fall safety guidelines and must be provided with fall protection training, because they work at extremely elevated heights and falling can even result in death.
Slipping and Tripping
Tripping and slipping incidents usually occur because of wet floors, spillage, tools or equipment left loose on the floor, loose cords, improper flooring or carpeting, and other fall hazards in the walkways.
Whether you own a small office or a large factory, slips and trips are common in every work setting. However, they are not inevitable and can be reduced—if not eliminated—from your workplace by training employees on workplace safety and preventative measures.
Injuries Caused by Vehicles
Employees whose jobs are related to motor vehicles are at the highest risk of sustaining these injuries. For instance, traffic control persons who have to control a variety of vehicles on a regular basis, fork lift operators in warehouses and retail stores, and bulldozer operators on construction sites.
It’s essential for these employees to obtain specialized safety training to operate the vehicles safely without causing any harm to themselves, the property, and other workers.
If you want to mitigate the risk of above mentioned and several other injuries in your workplace, get in touch with Metro Safety Training for top-quality workplace safety training and first aid training in BC. We offer a wide range of training to boost workers’ safety including fall protection inspection training, forklift training, BCCSA traffic control person training, confined spaces training, and training to safely handle potentially toxic substances.
Feel free to call us at 604-521-4227 for details about our courses.
