Methylene chloride kills. We wrote about 21-year old Kevin Hartley last June. He died last April 29 — Workers Memorial Day — while when he was overcome by methylene chloride while stripping a bath tub. Seventeen workers have died from over-exposure to methylene chloride between 2000 and 2015, and probably at least as many consumers. “Methylene chloride is too dangerous to keep on the store shelves,” said Dr. Robert Harrison of the University of California San Francisco. He says in a small room, just a half gallon’s worth of product containing that chemical can lead to a buildup of vapors that can prove lethal in less than an hour.
Hundreds of people gathered in Farmington, West Virginia on Sunday to commemorate a 49-year-old mining tragedy that killed 78 miners. The solemn ceremony held at Flat Run Memorial honored victims of the November 20, 1968 Farmington mine disaster in the Consol No. 9 coal mine north of Farmington and Mannington.
There were 99 miners at work that day when an explosion rocked the mine. The blast was strong enough to be felt in Fairmont, almost 12 miles away. Fires caused by the blast burned for over a week.
OSHA is proposing nearly two million dollars in fines against a Wisconsin corn milling facility, after five employees were killed in 12 others injured in a grain dust explosion. Among those injured in the May 31, 2017 accident at Didion Milling, Inc.: a 21-year-old employee who suffered a double leg amputation after being crushed by a railcar. OSHA found that the explosion likely resulted from Didion’s failures to correct the leakage and accumulation of highly combustible grain dust throughout the facility and to properly maintain equipment to control ignition sources.
Harsh criticism from NTSB after fatal train derailment
November 15, 2017
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has determined that the April 3, 2016, derailment of Amtrak train 89 near Chester, Pennsylvania was caused by deficient safety management across many levels of Amtrak and the resultant lack of a clear, consistent and accepted vision for safety. A backhoe operator and a track supervisor were killed, and 39 people were injured when Amtrak train 89, traveling on the Northeast Corridor from Philadelphia to Washington on track 3, struck a backhoe at about 7:50 a.m.
Two New York City construction workers at two different worksites plunged to their deaths and another was seriously injured Thursday – a day after the City Council approved a controversial construction safety bill.
A few of the standout sessions and events over the next few days include Monday’s Executive Forum, which will discuss serious injury and fatality preventions.
The employer of a worker who was struck and killed by a moving spindle failed to identify and correct machinery hazards in its facility, according to California OSHA, which has issued five citations against Aero Pacific Corp.
A couple of comments before we get to this week’s list. We’ve written about OSHA’s unfortunate decision to remove the names of workers killed on the job from their webpage. Jennifer Gollan of Reveal News interviewed a number of family members of workers killed on the job who felt that OSHA’s decision was wrong and reduces their loved ones’ deaths to a statistic.
After spending a year in prison on charges related to one of the nation’s worst mining disasters, former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship has taken to TV to plead his innocence. In a series of television ads running in West Virginia, Blankenship, who was convicted of conspiring to violate federal mine safety standards, is now blaming the Mining Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) for the 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine disaster that killed 29 miners.
The cause of the fatal Virginia State Patrol helicopter crash in Charlottesville, Virginia has not yet been determined, although investigators have been able to rule out a few possibilities as they examine the wreckage.
