Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 145, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 June 1920 — WATCH TOOR STEP [ARTICLE]

WATCH TOOR STEP

IMhlnf Lott by Keeping bi MM "Safety First.” ■ ••vgnunMt Bulletin Lists VartotlM of AocMonte la Might Easily Be Avoided by the 4* f Exerotoo of Care. Sectile signs blink the slogan, “Bo Careful.” around the big mills. From mother’s apron strings to the latest newspaper the voices of safety first call “Be OarefuL” Now cornea the United States labor apartment and tens how many ways yon can got hurt by falling. There are three kinds of falling: (1) Falling from a hick place to the level; (2) fall* Ing from the level Into a place below level; («> falling while walking or standing on the level. In the flrot classification we find all kinds of high places to foil from. In the card Indexes of the safety engineers they have records of people falling from .benches, boxes, chairs, tables, bridge* dame and docks, cranes, elevators, derricks, hoists—elevated blns, pockets, tanks (falls from but not Valls inray In construction or demolition—floors—ladders, scaffolds. staging—boilers, engines, machteee ■ pUok poles, trees, roofs, runways, balconies, platforms, gangplanks, stairs and steps, tramways, trestles, windows, walls and wall openings. Ladders, by the way. are the worst and trickiest of all. More falls from ladders than from any other high spots are recorded. As the safety engineers classify 1 adder falls: (X) ton hit the ground because the ladder broke or a step In the ladder went to pieces under your foot; (1) either you slipped and twisted or the ladder slipped end twisted; (B)' somebody or something knocked you off the ladder; (4) or how it all happened was a mystery. Getting into Class B, where the fall is from the level into territory not on tbs level, people foil Into excavations, pita, shafts, blns, vats, floor openings, manUMilea Ts standing or moving on the level you slip or stumble, you get into Class C. A stumble, however, may bo caused by fixed objects or loose objects. A'sleeping dog or a hunk of pig iron may trip up the feet that do not respectfully elevate. The number of foiling objects that knock people down and get their names Into the accident records are collapsing buildings, walls, scaffolds, stagings, chutes, conveyors, slides, stacked, stored, or piled-up material. Also racks, shelves, machines, work benches, temporary floors, trees, ditch and trench cave-ins, mine and quarry coal, rock and ore. Experiences with "injuries due to ocoffitog, larking or horseplay’’ art noted in the federal labor department bulletin by Commissioner George Kingston of the workmen’s compensation board of Ontario, Can, A railway porter wrenched his foot but was denied compensation because he “was Urging with two young ladies” and ■howing them how nifty he was at jumping trains. Claims were allowed “where a Chinaman employed in a factory was the innocent victim of' bonwplay—blown up by hose; where a man had been teased by another workman suddenly turned tn revenge and hit an Innocent party; where a man about to punch the time clock was hit from behind by another workman, injured man innocent of any horse*' play." AH of which gives us a hunch as to what the electric signs mean blinking late at night and early morning, “Be Careful." ; y