Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Importance of PPE

Thank you for posting.

Gotta PO Box?
I'll tighten you up with a few pairs....

Having served as a safety officer at a facility I worked at I can tell you about attitudes by employees, supervisors, and employers.

Hard to deal with employees that have to be told multiple times to wear their seatbelts when driving the company rigs, at least until you get out the gate.

Hard to deal with employees that take a company vessel out and come back without their PFD on, come up from the water, and when told by me they've been warned before, they look at each other and say "See, I told you he'd say something"

Hard to deal with supervisors that don't want to put a railing on a loading dock because the OSHA regs say "X inches tall needs a railing" and our dock was "X-2" tall". As if it would matter to the employee backing up with a full load on the pallet jack when falling off the "X-2" " dockside.

Hard to deal with employees who won't wear their hearing protection because "I was an armorer in Vietnam and can't hear well anyway". Or wear their safety glasses because it makes them sweat and they can't see.

Re: glasses. You folks that wear eyeglasses for vision are doing yourself a BIG disservice if you think regular prescription glasses will help much. In some cases they might even be worse than no glasses at all, depending on the type of lens you have. Get some prescription safety glasses for everyday use in the yard, shop, etc. Or use the type that fit over your regular glasses.

Fortunately, the place I retired from was big on safety, and most everyone followed the "rules". A good enough place they provided prescription safety glasses up to $300 I think, so folks would wear them at all times at the plant. Hearing tests yearly, blood work for lead and other metals too. Now I'm retired, I'm getting ready to spring for my own pairs, yes pairs. Sunglasses and regular. I wear sunglasses daily and they are the safety ones provided by my work. I've been wearing some version of safety sunglasses for years, Smith and Wesson used to have some nice polarized ones even, that I could wear before I needed prescription ones.

I can't think of a time I'd like to be doing something in the yard or shop that I can't wear my prescription safety glasses. Mine are bifocal too. Usually have a pair of earplugs in the little pocket of my cargo pants so those get uses a lot too. Other day I got the skillsaw out to make some garden beds. Working right near the well house were my shooting bag ended up, pair of muffs right there and the sunglasses were already on my head.

Nearly lost a toe to a power mower once wearing plastic yard clogs. Now real shoes go on my feet when mowing, no more sandals and schidt.

Question for you fellas that use a chainsaw around the yard on occasion. How many put their chaps on, assuming one even has some to put on? Safety glasses and hearing protection?

Safety gear and use can be expensive and a pain to wear...............but how expensive is an "accident"?

Some things no protection will help with. I was working outside on a barge one time when the tension on the wires between barges increased when making up the tow and the bollard the wire was attached to broke right off the deck at the weld and went sailing right past us into the water. That was exciting, having a 2' tall, 8" cylinder of metal flying around. Unless I had been walking around in a metal cage, I don't think the PPE I was wearing would have helped.

Stay safe dudes.

Geno

For the more mature eyes in the crowd, you can now get safety glasses with cheaters for those close up tasks

Some dipchit took a rip back up the dove field line at of all things........a sparrow hawk that came in for cripples.
Shot went over my buds head, he next spot between me and shooter.
I was watching the hawk and assumed nobody would be stupid enough to shoot at it, let alone low angle, let alone back up the friggin line.

Wrong.

Got welted up pretty good, thanks to tree branch between me and the shot.
If not for that, proly gotten eye damage of some sort.

DNR on hunts mandated 7.5 or smaller. They were 6's.

It got pretty heated, and I turned him into DNR. Don't think they did anything.

Wore safety glasses for years after that. But haven't last few.

Interesting timing of this thread, as I was thinking about safety glasses................for even the gun deer opener.
On private ground.

Getting nervous the older I get.

Had bullets and shot hit and buzz by me in treestands, and on the ground.
Been uneventful the last decade.

Which has me more nervous.

That and some fookstick texting and driving............2 lane highway to hunting spot.
Yrs ago I had 3 days off work.

Went bowhunting for the afternoon, fresh crash, dudes dead.
Went to other spot, another county next day, another fatal wreck I came upon.

3rd day I didn't hunt, just stayed home.

Hard to deal...

BS. It's simple to change the culture where safety is concerned. Hit them where it hurts. Catch em not wearing their PPE, balance of the shift plus three days off without pay. Safety violations, just like lock-out violations. Balance and three, unpaid. This includes supervisors. You'd be surprised how quickly people will see the light...

Seen something bad that passed mgmnt, union and safety............damn near killed a guy.

And after that, the massive level of stupidity to make it look like they ever did their fuggin job.

Safety............yours is your responsibility and nobody else really gives a damn.

I changed my work habits big time after that.
Risky stuff, where I work........I worked to minimize the risks.
Now I won't even do some jobs at all......even if by the book.

They aint worth it.

No PPE or lock out where I'm at is 30 days no pay 1st occurrence.
2nd you're gone.

BTW, when I took some shot to face/chest............I got my first pair of Oakleys that week.
I have Magpul Terrains on my head right now.

Keyboard safety dontcha know LOL

I have a couple pair of clear work type safety glasses, plus 2 pair of earpro in my truck all the time, in case somebody comes to range and needs any.

Or in case I forget

Even w safety glasses on I got an aluminum sliver in my eye.
Plant doc bruised me up big time and got part of it.
Hamburgered my eyelid for 2 days and then I got it out.

That's where "take two" comes into play. We get management, safety and engineering involved to work out a solution. We might have to use a high risk-low frequency job plan developed to accomplish the task, no one bows to the pressure from production to get the equipment up and running ASAP. The only reason we can refuse a job is due to safety, you better be able to articulate the reason behind your refusal.

Wear it.
Or regret it.

Only takes a second for schitt to happen.

They went by the book and damn near killed a coworker, all three signed off on something that was blatantly F'd.
So yes, we can question stuff.
And should.
Because their work record shows they are incompetent.

Of course we have folks that try to question stuff that need not be questioned, but they are the stereotypical lazy pieces of chit.
Their work record proves what they are doing is just BS.

My work record is stellar.

I'm not trusting my safety to a bunch of friggin democrats.

It's hardest to get the young folks to wear it. They are still 10' tall and bullet proof. Even on the farm, I have a case of ear plugs, safety glasses, full face shields, leather gloves, full safety harnesses and what not, and I still managed to tumble off a ladder and knock myself out. Fortunately we followed our rule of never having someone go up a ladder without someone there to call the ambulance...

Since I found some safety glasses with readers in them, I've been pretty religious about wearing them. Ear plugs, glasses and gloves when dealing with cryo. The older I get, the more natural it becomes.

But these young whipper snappers take some convincing....

Not really BS when the higher ups don't support you. See my comment about the loading dock. The employees in question were reported to those same supervisors, had a sit down with them, were told to wear seatbelts, PFD, eye and hearing protection and would go right back to their old ways to only get reported again for the same or another violation.

Did manage to convince the bosses to tell a guy he had to quit coming in smelling like whiskey every morning. The way he smelled if he took a company vehicle out he'd be over the legal limit for a few hours at least. After that he seemed to keep his heavy drinking to the weekends.

One operation is not like the others. If the stuff that happened at the one facility were to have happened at the one I retired from, there would have been consequences for the offenders for sure.

Geno

Dutch it isn't the young people getting hurt. Statistics show it's the high-time journeyman close to retiring who have done the same job for years that are getting hurt. Especially during the time period to or after a holidays or vacations.

Our company pays for our prescription safety glasses on an annual basis. Side shields are required...

Upper management will change their tune the first time they're involved in a fatal accident investigation.

Must be like my manager's 76 year old dad who broke his ribs TWICE in a year's time chasing cows on a four wheeler. Stubborn old fart.....

Seriously, I had to fire one kid, not even 20. Among his offenses was walking up to me filling a liquid oxygen bottle while smoking. No freaking sense.

AJ, I was just hoping on that job to avoid that occurrence. I think that possibility was what did the trick with the whisky breath guy.

Place I retired from had a lot more dangerous things going on, so they seemed to take it much more seriously...................and it was 10+ years later too. A lot has changed in the safety world, but not enough yet.

Geno

Dude, that kid was trying to take out more than himself.

I don't know how you small employers do it. Myself, I'd have likely beat the kid first, then fired him.

Geno