Earthquake Emergency Preparedness Tips

Earthquake is something that horrify. Situation that make people panic and confuse at the time of the happening of earthquake. This condition Emergency claim each and everyone know how to face earthquake situation truly. Muzziness And panicity will cause somebody will face injury and dangers to menace soul safety.

Stay as safe as possible during an earthquake. Be aware that some earthquakes are actually foreshocks and large earthquake might occur. Minimize your movements to a few steps to a nearby safe place and stay indoors until the shaking has stopped and you are sure exiting is safe.

In the following some way of you which can do at the time of the happening of earthquake:

1. Drop, cover and hold-on in each safe place. Drop under sturdy desk or table, hold on and protect your eyes by pressing your face against your arm. Stay away from window and bookcase or tall furniture that could fall on you. Stay away from doorways where door can slam shut. If you are in bed, hold on and stay there and protection your head with pillow.
   


2. The shorter the distance to move to safety, the less likely you will be injured. Injury statistics show that persons moving more than 10 feet during an earthquake's shaking are most likely to experience injury


3. Stay indoors until the shaking stop and you are sure it is safe to exit. If you are out doors, find a clear spot away from building, trees,signs, poles and power lines. Drop to the ground


4. If you on sidewalk near the building duck into the doorway to protect yourself from falling bricks, glass, plaster and other debris


5. If you are driving, pull over to the side of the road and stop. Avoid overpasses, powerlines, and other hazards. Stay inside the vehicle until the shaking is over. Avoid stopping near or under the building, tress, overpasses and utility wires. Proceed cautiously once the earthquake has stopped. Avoid roads, bridges, or ramps that might have been damaged by earthquake

Read more!

Fire Safety in the kitchen

In the following tips will help you to prevent from FIRE in your kitchen. You must to follow it so you can avoid any fire risk, please remember tips here:

1. Please chec k your gas first before using it from any leak or unfix gas pipe.
2. Don't keep anything on top of, in and around your oven
3. Don't keep any flamable liquid, explosion material, near your oven and stove.
4. Don't use your oven extra storage for flammable thing such as paper, plastic bag, dishtowel, plastik container, because event you don't turn the oven on, the pilot light can ignite the objects inside.
5. Never leave cooking unattended
6. If you fell have a gas stove and smell gas (beyond a burnt-out pilot light), turn off all burners, open windows for better ventilation . Be cautious when relighting pilot lights: make sure the room is well ventilated and use long-stemmed matches or lighters. Never use your stove (electric or gas) to heat the room.
7. Please put one small extinguisher for fire protection when the fire happen
8. Never to cut off fire with splush of water, because it will be worse for the fire it self, and makin fire to be over.
9. Better use a fire blanket or towel with previously keep it wet to shutdown the fire in your stove if you don't have fire extinguisher.
10. Always carerefull from many fire hazard.
11. Use potholders (as opposed to rags, that may catch fire) when moving any hot object.
    

So have nice cooking and enjoy your cook, keep safety always

Read more!

Key Question In Accident Investigation

To determine what the root cause of accident, we have to use key to understanding the accident happen. There are six basic questions to provide for opening the investigation as a below:

1. WHO was injured? The goal of WHO question is to determine who saw the accident? It is important when accident happen. We need witnesses to help the investigator in order to understand who participate to the caused of accident such as who installed the faulty equipment, and also who was responsible for installation.
2. WHAT happened? What was the cause of accident? What did the injury worker do or fail to do? What equipment or facilities were involved?
3. WHERE did the accident happen?Where was the injured worker's supervisor at the time of the accident? " Where" question will be help to determine what caused the accident and the events leading up to it.
4. WHEN did the accident accur? "When" question should contain more information than just a clock reading. Though the time of the accident accurrence is very importan to know , relationships are often more important . "When" question ask such question as: When did the injured worker take the guard off his or her machine? When was the injured person last given safety intructions? "When" question also elicit information or relationships between activities or events.
5. HOW? "How" also provide information on the interaction and relationships between activities and events. How did the accident happen? How well was the worker intructed to perform the task?How did the guard fall off te machine?
6. WHY? "Why" question should give some indication as to the corrective measures that should be taken.Since the answers here will generally focus on unsafe action or unsafe condition
   

Read more!

Electrical Injury

Electrical injury is happen in many workplace area and exposes worker to serious injury till death and about 1,000 people die annually of electric shock in the United States. It is happen caused worker or workplace area didn't set up with safety condition or low worker understanding to electrical management. Many workers are unaware of the potential electrical hazards present in their work environment, which makes them more vulnerable to the danger of electrocution.

Electrical injury causes:

• Accidental contact with exposed parts of electrical appliances or iring.
  
• Young children biting or chewing on electrical cords, or poking metal objects into the electrical outlet.
  
• Lightning.
  
• Flashing of electric arcs from high-voltage power lines.
  
• Machinery or occupational-related exposures.

Electrical injuries
An electrical injury can occur to the skin or internal organs when a person is directly exposed to an electrical current. An electrical injuries can be caused by a wide range of voltages but the risk of injury is generally greater with higher voltages and is dependent upon individual circumstances.
Alternating current (AC) and Direct Current (DC) electrical supplies can cause a range of injuries including:

• Electric shock
  
• Electrical burns
  
• Loss of muscle control
  
• Thermal burns

Electric shock

Electric shock can cause effect to human body causes a current to flow that can block the electrical signals between the brain and the muscles. It's can influence to many part of the body as a following:

• Cardiac arrest due to the electrical effect on the heart.
  
• Preventing the person from breathing
  
• Causing muscle spasms
  
• Loss of muscle control
  
• Thermal burns

Electrical burns

When an electrical current passes through the human body it heats the tissue along the length of the current flow. This can result in deep burns that often require major surgery and are permanently disabling. Burns are more common with higher voltages but may occur from domestic electricity supplies if the current flows for more than a few fractions of a second.

Loss of muscle control

persons who receive an electric shock often get painful muscle spasms that can be strong enough to break bones or dislocate joints. This loss of muscle control often means the person cannot ‘let go’ or escape the electric shock. The person may fall if they are working at height or be thrown into nearby machinery and structures.

Thermal burns

Overloaded, faulty, incorrectly maintained, or shorted electrical equipment can get very hot, and some electrical equipment gets hot in normal operation. Even low voltage batteries (such as those in motor vehicles) can get hot and may explode if they are shorted out.

First Aid:

1. If safely possible, shut off the electrical current. Unplug the cord, remove the fuse from the fuse box, or turn off the circuit breakers if possible. Often, simply turning off the appliance itself will not stop the flow of electricity.
   
2. Call for medical help.
   
3. If the current can't be turned off, use a non-conducting object, such as a broom, chair, rug, or rubber doormat to push the victim away from the source of the current. Don't use a wet or metal object. If possible, stand on something dry and non-conducting, such as a mat or folded newspapers. Do not attempt to rescue a victim near active high-voltage lines.
   
4. Once the victim is free from the source of electricity, check the victim's airway, breathing, and pulse. If either has stopped or seems dangerously slow or shallow, initiate first aid ( CPR ).
   
5. If the victim has a burn, remove any clothing that comes off easily, and rinse the burned area in cool running water until the pain subsides. Give first aid for burns.
   
6. If the victim is faint, pale, or shows other signs of shock , lay the victim down, with the head slightly lower than the trunk of the body and the legs elevated, and cover the person with a warm blanket or a coat.
   
7. Stay with the victim until medical help arrives.
   
8. Electrical injury is frequently associated with explosions or falls that can cause additional traumatic injuries, including both obvious external injuries and concealed internal injuries. Avoid moving the victim's head or neck if a spinal injury is suspected. Administer appropriate first aid as needed for other wounds or fractures.

Do Not:

• DO NOT touch the victim with your bare hands while the person is still in contact with the source of electricity.
  
• DO NOT remove dead skin or break blisters if the victim has acquired burns.
  
• DO NOT apply ice, butter, ointments, medications, fluffy cotton dressings, or adhesive bandages to a burn.
  
• DO NOT touch the skin of someone who is being electrocuted.
  
• DO NOT get within 20 feet of someone who is being electrocuted by high-voltage electrical current until the power is turned off.
  
• DO NOT move a victim of electrical injury unless there is immediate danger.

Prevention:

• Use child safety plugs in all outlets.
  
• Keep electrical cords out of children's reach.
  
• Teach your children about the dangers of electricity.
  
• Avoid electrical hazards at home and at work. Always follow manufacturer's safety instructions when using electrical appliances.
  
• Parents of small children should put safety guards on all electrical outlets, and keep children away from electrical devices.
  
• Avoid using electrical appliances while showering or wet.
  
• Never touch electrical appliances while touching faucets or cold water pipes.

sources:
Electrocution Fatality Investigation Reports
www.umm.edu
www.hse.gov.uk

Read more!

Ethanol,Methanol and Ethylene glycol poisoning

Ethanol

Overdose of ethanol (ethyl alcohol or"alcohol") is very common. Alcohol potentiates the CNS-depressant effect of many drugs. It initially causes disinhibition and later ataxia, dizziness, dysarthria, and drowsiness. In severe poisoning may be coma with respiratory depression, hypotension, hypothermia, and a metabolic acidosis. Hypoglycemia is a particular problem in a children and may occur after some hours. Death may result from respiratory failure or aspiration of vomit.

For an adult, the fatal dose of ethanol alone is 300-500ML absolute alcohol. Whisky and gin usually contain 40-50% ethanol. Rarely alcohol intoxication cause lactic acidosis (Especially with the patient with liver diseases or taking biquanide hypoglicaemic drug) or ketoacidosis (due to dehydration and hypoglicaemia in alcohol).

Treat Supportively:

• Maintain clear airway and adequate ventilation
  
• Check blood glucose every 1-2 hours in severe poisoning
  
• Emergency measurement of blood ethanol is rarely helpful
  
• Correct hypoglicaemia with glucose not with glucagon
  
• Look sign for injury, especially head injury
  
• Gastric lavage and activated charcoal are ineffective in ethanol intoxication
  
• Do not give fructose

Mehanol Poisoning
Methanol is used as a solvent and in antifreeze. Ingestion of >60ML of methanol (in Adult) may cause fatal poisoning, the toxic effect due to the metabolites formaldehide and formid acid. Methylated spirits is a mixture of ethanol and water with only 5% ethanol and toxicity is almost entirely due to ethanol.

Clninical features
Methanol initially cause only mild transient drowsiness. Serious toxicity develops after a latent period of 8-36 hours with vomiting, abdominal pain, headache, dizziness, blurring of vision and drowsiness leading to coma. There is a severe metabolic acidosis, hyperglicaemia, and increase serum amylase. survivor may be blind due to optic nerve damage and Parkinsonian Problem.

Management

• Provide gastric lavage less than 1 hour since ingestion
  
• Measure ABG (Analys Blood Gas), U&E, blood glucose, and plasma methanol
  
• correct metabolic acidosis to keep arterial pH > 7,2 large amount of bicarbonate may be needed and hypernatremia may be occur.
  
• Give methanol orally as whisky, gin or vodka (adult 125-150mL, child 2mL/kg) and then intravenous infusion (dose as for ethylene glycol)
  
• Give folinic acid (30 mg IV every 6 hours)
  
• In severe poisoning refer to ITU for haemodialysis and possibly IPPV

Ethylene glycol poisoning
Ethylene glicol is used mainly as antifreeze. The minimum fatal dose adult=100mL. Toxic effect due to metabolites, including glycolaldehyde and oxalid acid. ethanol blocks metabolism of ethylene glycol, preventing toxicity.

Clinical Features
In the first 12 hours after ingestion the victim look drunk, but does not smell of alcohol. Aaxia, disarthria, nausea, vomiting, and sometimes haematemesis occur, followed by convulsion, coma and severe metabolic acidosis. From 12-24 hours post ingestionthere is hyperventilation, tachycardia, pulmonary oedema, cardiac arrhythmias and cardiac failure. Hypocalcaemia may be severe. Acute tubular necrosis and renal failure occur at 24-72 hours. Cranial nerve palsies may be develop.

Management

• Perform gastric lavage
  
• Measure ABG, U&E, calcium and plasma ethylene glycol
  
• Correct metabolic acidosis to keep arterial pH >7.2 large amount of bicarbonate may be needed and hypernattraemia may occur
  
• Give ethanol orally as whisky, gin, or vodka (adult 125-150mL, child 2ml/kg) followed by intravenous infusion (IVI)of ethanol, preferably as 5% solution in dextrose, initial IV adult dose is 12g ethanol per hour, increase for alcoholic during haemodialysis and adjusted to maintain blod ethanol at 1gr/lt
  
• correct severe hypocalcaemia with calcium gluconate (10mL of 10% slowly IV)
  
• In severe poisoning, haemodialysis is required, with frequent measurement of blood ethlylene glycol and ethanol concentrations.
  
• Ventialation may be needed if pulmonary oedema develops

Source
Oxford Handbook of Accident and emergency medicine

Read more!

Botulism

Do you always buy preserved food? I think many people in modern style to do the simple way to buy some food and preserved food is ones choices because it's easy to serve and cook but you have to pay attention look at the expire date, check the seal is broken or not and take preserved food with longer of the expire date to avoid foodborne that cause intoxication. Either intoxication or infection follows eating tinned or preserved food contaminated with Clostridium Botulinum spores, cases involved sausage, tinned salmon, hazelnut yoghurt and other food. Clostridium Botulinum cause illness called BOTULISM. There are seven recognized types of botulism. Four of these (types A, B, E and rarely F) cause human botulism. Types C, D and E cause illness in mammals, birds and fish.

Sign and Symptoms
The symptoms is appear within 12 to 36 hours (within a minimum and maximum range of four hours to eight days) after exposure. Initial symptoms may be mainly Gastrointestinal problem such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal discomfort, dryness of the mouth or neurological such as dizziness, blured vision, diplopia. Later problem include dysarthria, dysphagia, muscle weakness or paralysis, constipation and urinary retention, respiratory falure and sudden death. There is no fever and no loss of consciousness.

Prevention
To prevent from botulism you have to be good food preparation (particularly preservation) practices and hygiene, cook well done, because the botulism toxin able to destroyed by high temperatures, check the expire date of food product, do not use any food if the food was expired date already. Commercial heat pasteurization (vacuum packed pasteurized products, hot smoked products) may not be sufficient to kill all spores and therefore safety of these products must be based on preventing growth and toxin production. Keep it any preserved food in refrigerator. Refrigeration temperatures combined with salt content and/or acidic conditions will prevent the growth or formation of toxin. If exposure to the toxin via an aerosol is suspected, in order to prevent additional exposure to the patient and health care providers, the clothing of the patient must be removed and stored in plastic bags until it can be washed with soap and water.

Treatment
The respiratory failure and paralysis that occur with severe botulism may require a patient to be on a breathing machine (ventilator) for weeks, plus intensive medical and nursing care. After several weeks, the paralysis slowly improves. If diagnosed early, foodborne and wound botulism can be treated with an antitoxin which blocks the action of toxin circulating in the blood. This can prevent patients from worsening, but recovery still takes many weeks

Sources:

1. CDC
2. WHO
   

Read more!

Accident Investigation

Around the world accident is frequently happened, many accident such as cars accident, trains accident, aircrafts accident, ships accident, worker accident in workplace . We know that the accident is unplanned, unpredictable, undesirable even like that we can understanding to know what cause of factors contributed by Accident Investigation. Accident Investigation is tool used to find out what kind of the accident, Who is get accident, when is accident happen, where is accident happen, Why the accident happen, and How can accident happen. It useful to reduce and avoid any similar accident happen in the future. Remember Five's W and (one H) question to explore accident happen.
Several reasons to investigate in a workplace accident include:

1. most importantly, to find out the cause of accidents and to prevent similar accidents in the future.
   
2. to fulfill any legal requirements.
   
3. to determine the cost of an accident.
   
4. to determine compliance with applicable safety regulations.
   
5. to process workers' compensation claims.

Who should do the accident Investigation?
In most cases, the supervisor should help investigate the event. Other members of the team can include:

• employees with knowledge of the work.
  
• safety officer.
  
• health and safety committee.
  
• union representative, if applicable.
  
• employees with experience in investigations.
  
• "outside" expert.
  
• representative from local government.

Why look for the "root cause"?
An investigator who believes that accidents are caused by unsafe conditions will likely try to uncover conditions as causes. On the other hand, one who believes they are caused by unsafe acts will attempt to find the human errors that are causes. Therefore, it is necessary to examine some underlying factors in a chain of events that ends in an accident.

The important point is that even in the most seemingly straightforward accidents, seldom, if ever, is there only a single cause. For example, an "investigation" which concludes that an accident was due to worker carelessness, and goes no further, fails to seek answers to several important questions such as:

• Was the worker distracted? If yes, why was the worker distracted?
  
• Was a safe work procedure being followed? If not, why not?
  
• Were safety devices in order? If not, why not?
  
• Was the worker trained? If not, why not?

What are the steps involved in investigating an accident?
The accident investigation process involves the following steps:

• Report the accident occurrence to a designated person within the organization.
  
• Provide first aid and medical care to injured person(s) and prevent further injuries or damage.
  
• Investigate the accident.
  
• Identify the causes.
  
• Report the findings.
  
• Develop a plan for corrective action.
  
• Implement the plan.
  
• Evaluate the effectiveness of the corrective.

Accident Investigate Approach
As with most other tasks, skill in conducting effective accident investigations improves with experience. A good basic approach is to find out what caused the accident and what can be done to prevent or minimize the chances of a similar accident occurring. Some suggestions that may help supervisors get the facts and reach a conclusion include:

• Maintain objectivity throughout the investigation. Its purpose is to find the cause of the accident, not to assign blame for its occurrence.
  
• Check the accident site and circumstances thoroughly before anything is changed.
  
• Discuss the accident with the injured person, but only after first aid or medical treatment has been given (see Section A1, Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses). Also talk with anyone who witnessed the accident and those familiar with conditions immediately before and after it occurred.
  
• Be thorough. Small details may point to the real cause.
  
• Reconstruct the events that resulted in the accident, considering all possible causes. Determine unsafe conditions or actions that separately or in combination were contributing factors.

What To Do With The Results

Supervisors should take action to control or eliminate the conditions that caused the accident once these have been conclusively identified. EHS can provide assistance in determining the level of action that may be necessary, such as the following:

• When equipment changes or safeguards are necessary, supervisors should discuss specific recommendations with Department management;
  
• When an operation can be changed to eliminate the hazard, supervisors should make the change if it is within their authority, or seek the necessary approval from Department management;
  
• If unsafe acts by workers are involved, ensure that the worker is properly trained and that training is followed. All others involved in similar operations should be trained as well.

Roles and Responsibilities
Department

• Ensure accidents involving their operations or workers are investigated.
  
• Ensure corrective actions are taken.

Supervisors

• Particpate in incident investigations.
  
• Take corrective actions.

EHS

• Investigate incidents promptly and thoroughly.
  
• Issue accident investigation reports.
  
• Provide training in investigation methods and techniques when requested.

Individual

• Cooperate with supervisors and others during investigations

References:
web.princeton.edu
www.ccohs.ca

Read more!