OUCH! Osha wants you to take better care of your newbies.

Rugged made
Wesspur
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He was 23, very much an adult.

Not sure why the employer would need to babysit everything. Anyone with any amount of sense would know... hmm it's hot, I need to be drinking alot of water and take breaks.
Unless the boss forced him to not have water or any breaks than I can't see how it's their fault at all. There are lots of signs leading up to that level of heat stroke, it's not like your fine one minute and dead the next!
 
One of the early signs is confusion and disorientation... which is why everyone on the crew needs to keep an eye on the new guys, not telling them to "get back to work, *****" or assuming they've experienced it before.
 
I agree with ValleyFirewood, I don't think employers should have to be the parent in every little situation. I do believe in treating your employees right and benefits should be provided if you actually care, but something like this, I don't really understand why it's the employers fault that he didn't drink enough water, sorry if that sounds harsh.

-Michael
 
As an employer who has experienced the tragedy of a death on the job, I can assure you that the employer has a much greater obligation to their employees than just to give them the tools to do the job and a paycheck at the end of the week.

Training is important to prevent OTJ injuries, and I don't think it is reasonable to limit training to just how to avoid getting hit on the head by falling logs or how to avoid getting chipped.

I believe that just fostering an attitude of concern for the welfare of the employees might have prevented this rather tragic end to a hot days work. Surely there was some genuinely callous behavior in that particular workplace that would allow a young fellow fellow to die from such a preventable condition. Even if no one in the workplace knew enough about heat injuries to recognize the signs, surely they knew something was wrong when the guy had to fall out from heat stress. Clearly, OSHA thought that something was wrong too, otherwise they wouldn't have levied a fine.

My personal opinion is that yes, we are our brother's keeper, even when they are an employee.
 
Top Tree Service said:
I agree with ValleyFirewood, I don't think employers should have to be the parent in every little situation. I do believe in treating your employees right and benefits should be provided if you actually care, but something like this, I don't really understand why it's the employers fault that he didn't drink enough water, sorry if that sounds harsh.

-Michael
Click to expand...

My problem is not with it being the employers fault the guy didn't drink enough water. My problem is with a guy passing out from too much heat and then probably not doing anything about it. I personally have suffered from quite a bit of heat exhaustion, and it didn't make a damn bit of difference how much water I drank. Heat stroke & heat exhaustion occur when your metabolic processes are not working right for whatever reason, and just taking a drink of water generally doesn't fix that.

I would guess that the employer in this case wasn't too medically savvy, thought the young fellow should just tough it out, and he died as a consequence.
 
perhaps they also found the culture at the company, wanting, for lack of a better term. pure speculation obviously but the culture at any given company can have huge upside if it's a good working environment. flip it over and it could be a toxic place to work.
 
Even here i work on a paper faktory are the rules hour in 15 minutes out on some plases its 40+ celsius
 
Sad, but blame can be spread out.
I learned a lot when I got CTSP,,there are things that can and will put the employer liable.
I think smaller tree company's cut a lot of corner's without knowing it, (may be not, they just do not know OSHA law), in trade for production, I know because I climbed for 28 years with them all over.
I am in the field with all my crews and we have brutal day's in so-cal often.
On those day's, I will show up with a lot of cold water and gatorade, shut the job down for a while and production is not on my mind as a priority.
We have a jobs on a day with temp's over 100 degrees and I pull up on the job and I see all the guy's sitting in the trucks with the air conditioner on high and relaxing ,,I love it,,
An employer must care, his managers must care, and all employee's must be trained to care,,,,
Lot of comma's
Jeff
 
I remember a few tree jobs in Scotland, by lunchtime one day, it had warmed to -17°c/1.4°f, had full ppe and just a jumper on till it was down and I was pretty warm climbing about

Then moved to Oz, I've now pruned trees in up to 47°c/116°f in saw pants, helmet and long sleeves, it's a lot harder to function at that heat and it's so easy to overdo it and cook yourself. Lots of fluids and salt, regular breaks and watch each other

Sent from my ZTE T84 using Tapatalk
 
I dunno, I'm not a fan of OSHA. Many of their "rules" are beyond stupid.

Go work on the slope. Can't do anything without gloves... not even handle a cardboard box. Better have cardboard box gloves too.
No box cutters with stay open blades,

Guy I know was repremanded because he sliced his hand while filleting a fish. At home, during his 2 weeks off (most jobs are 3 on, 2 on or some varaition). He didn't report it, (why would he?!) company found because he used insurance and boom, written up.

I'd be interested in hearing the whole story on what happened. Safety is a good thing, but you can only "what if" a task so much before you can't get anything done.
 
I've been in the safety and health business for over 25 years. Before that I worked for a living in jobs where heat illnesses were a recognized hazard. It is the employer's responsibility to provide a safe workplace - period. I've witnessed heat illnesses in 80 deg F temps in high humidity and/or direct sun. The underlying issues with newbs are acclimation and understanding (training) for those conditions. You as an employer are responsible for ensuring that happens. Someone new that has not been recently accustomed to working in hot weather should be watched closely and directed to sit out and cool off. And anyone that has experienced getting too out can attest that it happens without warning and by then it can be too late. It's not just the possible heat exhaustion you need to be concerned about, it's the misjudged use of a saw, chipper, or stepping in the wrong place. As far as safety nit picking what-ifs I've seen this to such an extreme where the real elephant in the room is ignored. Those kinds of situations are destined for failure. As far as acclimatization and work hardening, remember that 35,000 people died in Europe in 2003 due to heat related illnesses when the temperature got up to just above 100.
 

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