A headlamp for hazardous locations, “smart” gloves and a horizontal lifeline for fall arrest were among the top occupational safety and health products featured on ISHN.com this week.

Gilster-Mary Lee Corp. of Steeleville, Illinois has been cited by OSHA for six safety violations including three willful after two maintenance employees conducting welding operations sustained serious burns to their upper bodies as the result of an explosion within a dust collector at the company's pasta manufacturing plant on Oct. 6, 2011. The incident occurred as the two employees were repairing a hole in the side of a metal trough.

A workplace dispute apparently led to a violent attack this morning at a Florida construction supply company in which an employee stabbed five people – four of them co-workers. The fifth victim was reportedly at the Dyke Industries Tallahassee distribution center for a job interview. All of the victims were transported to Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare for treatment and are expected to survive. They are reportedly in conditions ranging from serious to good.

Elevator World, Inc. named Wildeck, Inc. “Best Supplier – Special Application Lifts” as part of their 2019 Elevator Industry Awards program. “The Ellies” is sponsored annually by Elevator World, Inc. to recognize North American elevator and escalator industry businesses that go above and beyond for their customers, employees, communities and the industry as a whole. To be eligible to receive this prestigious award, companies must be first nominated by a customer, employee or other professional with ties to the organization.

VAC-U-MAX celebrates its 65-year anniversary by expanding the industrial vacuum cleaning product range with the new Model 1050, a continuous-duty industrial vacuum cleaning system designed to vacuum high-density materials such as steel shot, grit, cement, foundry sand and other similar materials. The Model 1050 vacuums up to 10,000 lbs (4,500 kg) per hour of materials such as Portland cement from distances up to 30 feet (9m) away.

Specialty Plastics Company (SPC), in Enid, Oklahoma, is a small company that can boast of a big achievement. Since 2016, SPC has experienced zero recordable workplace injuries. In contrast, for NAICS code 326122, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the industry average total recordable cases rate was 4.1, and the average cases with days away from work, job restriction, or transfer rate was 2.55 for this period. [NOTE: 2017 is the most recent year national averages are available.]

Industrial Scientific, a global leader in connected sensing technology, is pleased to announce the expansion of its connected safety portfolio to include a new wi-fi battery for the Ventis Pro5 Multi-Gas Monitor for customers in the United States and Canada. The new battery uses standard wi-fi networks to instantly transmit data directly to cloud-based iNet® Now software, providing real-time alerts and visibility into gas hazards, panic, and man-down situations.

With the destruction caused by Hurricane Dorian still making headlines, it’s a good time to review your facility’s preparedness for extreme weather, which can strike at work as well as at home. In addition to being peak time for both Atlantic and Pacific hurricanes (more on that below), September is also National Preparedness Month – a reminder that it’s vital to be ready for all kinds of natural disasters.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has issued a new safety digest on the value of worker participation to prevent chemical incidents. The digest notes that lack of worker participation was a factor in several major incidents investigated by the CSB because workers and their representatives were not engaged to help identify hazards and reduce risks.