The family of a hotel employee who drowned in a flooded elevator during Hurricane Harvey is suing her employer for what they say was a preventable death. A lawsuit filed this week in Texas claims that the death of 48-year-old Jill Renick, an Omni Houston Hotel employee, was due to gross negligence on the part of the hotel. The suit also names Otis Elevator as a defendant, citing the absence of flood sensors on the hotel’s elevators.

Several occupational and environmental safety and health professionals who’ve made extraordinary achievements in their sectors have received recognition lately: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) engineer Lt. Michael Shahan was awarded the Green Medal at the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) Joint Engineers Training Conference on May 25.

In a closely watched election contest, San Francisco voters have upheld a first-in-the-nation ban on the sale of menthol cigarettes and other flavored tobacco products, overwhelmingly rejecting an $11.6 million campaign by R.J. Reynolds to scuttle the law. San Francisco officials last June approved the ban but a petition drive funded by Reynolds, the maker of the top-selling menthol brand, Newport, forced the issue onto yesterday’s ballot.

The Inspector General (IG) issued a somewhat bizarre report yesterday on “management challenges” at the Chemical Safety Board. The IG is required by the Reports Consolidation Act of 2000 “to report what we consider the most serious management and performance challenges facing the CSB.”

The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) released a study last week that finds that the percentage of fatally-injured drivers with known drug test results* who tested positive for drugs has risen over 50% in the last ten years.

An eight-day trial in Billings, Montana last month ended with guilty verdicts against a trucking company and its CEO stemming from a 2012 explosion at an oil and gas processing facility in Wibaux, Mont., that seriously injured three workers. Defendants Woody’s Trucking, LLC and Donald E. Wood Jr. were convicted on 13 of the 14 charges against them, which included conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud, and obstruction of justice.

The changing nature of work and the need for innovative, comprehensive approaches to worker safety, health, and well-being were the focus of the 2nd International Symposium to AdvanceTotal Worker Health® held last month at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) campus in Bethesda, Maryland.

With preventable deaths at an all-time high, National Safety Council calls on parents to use National Safety Month to assess the greatest threats to young children’s safety

One man was killed and another injured at a New York City construction site when a large piece of glass fell from one of Manhattan’s tallest skyscrapers. According to news reports, 67-year-old security guard Harry Ramnauth died and a 27-year-old sustained injuries that required hospitalization when the eight-foot-by-14-foot glass panel fell at around 10:30 on Saturday morning.