Health and Safety

[Chris]

Following on from the Axemen topic; I did not see the programmes, but from what I have heard, these people were mad, and a lot of the fatalities could have been saved with basic health and safety.

I don't belive in going stupid about health and safety, however, not having it allowe employers to expect their workers to work dangerously to get the job done quickly, as in the Axemen programmes.

It makes sense to keep yourself safe. Use common sense and wear protective clothing when doing a job that needs it such as chainsawing.

I used to work in the electronics industry, and we were starting to develop more safety conciousness by then, but there were the tales of the old boys who would have a sandwich in one hand and a cyanide 'egg' to add to a plating bath in the other.

Keep safe; its your life.

Chris

[athelstan]

I was told about a Safety Data Sheet that was required to be on display in a laboratory for that incredibly dangerous substance WATER. It gave instructions on what to do if water got in your eyes - flush your eyes with water, if water got on your skin - place exposed skin under running water, if water is ingested, do not induce vomiting,but dilute with water.

These parasitic jobsworths will never supersede plain common sense. Call me a rebel but I utterly refuse to wear a hard-hat and safety goggles when playing conkers!

[tracy]

Mike and I have just been on a coppice harvesting course, which we will soon write more about (or see it at peplers.blogspot.com) and we did a lot on healthy and safety - learning about proper cuts, benches to save your back, holding the saw correctly and today we looked at ropes and pulleys. Fantastic course and I am sure we will work much more effectively and safely as a result.

[The Sawyer]

I'm glad that The subject of Health and safety has been brought up. There is a lot of rubish banded around about Health and safety (H&S) and it is used as an excuse to stop lots of activity when it was meant to reduce risk and stop Employers from forcing there work forced to carry out dangerous operation.

The basics of H&S are simple and in the most part are there to identify risks and remove or reduce them. it is human nature to asses risks and we do it without thinking e.g. when we cross the road if there is a car coming we don't just walk out. It should be the same with assessing risk with a wood.

As a Woodland manager and forest operator one thing you live with is risk assessments as it should be when you work with tools that can kill you.

A risk assessment (R/A) can be as simple as looking round a site and noting and telling other operators of dangers such as hung up trees/limbs hols and other trip hazards such as stumps or metal work. if there are less than 5 people working for or on a site then there is know formal requirement for a writen r/a.

To close i do know of some one who has managed To Write Such a good R/S that the group he runs is able to have 10-14 year old kids running a roman Blacksmiths forge. and people say H&S gets in the way.

ttfn Kes

[Chris]

I think the Safety Data Sheet for water was a joke. When COSHH first came in, we had to write rather repetitive Safety Data Sheets for everything we used; the idea was that you knew where in the Sheet to look for any item such as first aid. This was probably a chemist reacting to the overload of Safety Data Sheets. It sounds like a typical Chemists joke to me. There may have been one for water, but it would contain useful information like who the supplier was (in case of contamination) and where to turn it off at the mains in case of flood.

I was in at the start of COSHH, and it was a bit over the top, but we had all sorts of things in our cupboard including enough cyanide to poison the whole area.

A helmet and eye protection for conkers is because of insurance so the school does not get sued by irate parents of kids hit by a conker.

Chris W

[The Sawyer]

As Chris says much of the silliness which is blamed on H&S is to do more with insurance rather than pure assessment of risk.

ttfn kester

[RichardKing]

I had a disturbing incident a few months ago. I was working in my chestnut coppice and felled a large birch tree over 40 feet high. It came down exactly where I wanted, right across the clearing. I was just about to walk out and start logging it up when out of the corner of my eye I saw something moving. A single stem of chestnut about six inches in dimeter that had been standing six feet behind the birch was coming down very slowly. Rotating from the base of the stool It made no sound and took about a minute to gradualy fall right across the birch. The stem had had been alive and I can only assume that root rot had destabilised it and that the upper branches of the surrounding trees were all that was holding it up. It has certainly caused me to take even greater care.

[The Sawyer]

Hi Richard, This is why the forestry industry is one of the most dangerous jobs in the Uk. I two have had some near misses over the last 12moths, during an operation to clear some trees overhanging a foot path one of the trees we where winching fell of the stump sideways, save to say I was heading in the other direction at the time leaving the chain saw to fend for its self. I think the main lesson is have good escape routes and never work alone with a chainsaw.

ttfn Kester

[RichardKing]

In retrospect I should have reconised the warning signs. The area was overgrown with Birch and I found many dead coppice stumps. I began felling the Birches and ceated the clearing. On the far side of it was yet another standing Sweet Chestnut had just died this summer. The soil in this area is heavy clay, which means the roots dont go very deep and there is a lot of winthrow of even healthy trees which remain alive when horizontal. That whole area is potentialy risky.

[The Sawyer]

Hi Richard, Retrospect is a fine thing this is why Risk assessments are a good idea even if it is just an oral one as it Makes you look at the site in a different way. In my opinion you should make these a ritual when ever you go on to the site as things change even over night.

ttfn Kester