Posted By Ian Mycroft
We have just had to send one of our contractors to hospital following an accident which ended up with him having a flat bladed screwdriver embeded in the palm of his hand, almost breaking through the other side. The accident involved a "jubilee" type clip used to secure a hose to the cold water tap connection.

There have been many injuries in similar circumstances, (not in our organisation), though most not as serious, as a result of fitting this type of connection using a flat bladed screwdriver. This is because it is necessary for people to hold the clip steady with one hand whilst tightening the screw with the screwdriver held in the other hand, quite a lot of force is required to do this.

The screw head has provision for either a flat bladed screwdriver, or a hexagon socket to be used to tighten it up. The screwdriver slot is far too wide for a normal screwdriver to obtain a firm fit, this and the force required means that the tendency to slip is increased.

My opinion is that the provision of the screwdriver slot is a serious design fault in terms of safety. The correct/safe tool to use for this operation is a hexagon socket and only this should be provided for on the clip, by the manufacturer.

We have now changed our policy on hose connections to cold water taps and only accept the "hose-lock" type connection, which requires no tool to fit and allows quick and easy attachment and detachment of the hose.

Does anyone else have experience of this type of injury in these circumstances?

Regards,
Ian

Posted By Mike Charleston
Ian

Your description of the injury is quite horrific but I contend that the method of working needs a closer look rather than condemning an every-day fitting as having a design fault. I cannot conceive of a situation where the amount of energy needed to penetrate a hand so deeply should be being appled to a jubilee clip in the normal range of sizes that are inferred by your description of a cold water hose.

Three things come to mind:

1: What exactly created the situation in which the injured party had to exert so much energy?

2: Was the injured party competent to carry out this task?

3: Is the contractor able to agree that hoselocks are a practicable solution? If not, what will be done instead - enforce the use of allen keys? - are they a practicable solution?

As Dave Wilson has described so well, my own experience with these things is that you soon learn to anchor the jubilee clip in one hand without exposing yourself so openly to a slip of the screwdriver. A cut digit is far better than an injury like this. In my opinion, the necessary technique should be addressed during training and/or toolbox talks after such a significant event.

The "many injuries" claimed may or may not be true - is this based on fact or conjecture?

Why would it be appropriate to change the world's use of such a common item when it seems likely that a reasonably practicable solution lies closer to the person and/or method? By all means find a better design if one exists (such as the hoselock or allen key) but if not practicable for the task, what then?

Mike

Posted By allan wood
having had experience of this problem before i can tell you the company that i used to work for completley banned the use of these type of hose clips due to a similar accident. they chose to use a crimp to fit type of hose clip. quite a simple solution to what can be a nasty accident.

Posted By Ian Mycroft
Just an update on this. I have just had the opportunity to see the screwdriver that was involved in the accident and this answered some of the questions asked by Mike.

The blade was damaged which could have contributed to the accident and would certainly have helped it to penetrate the hand more easily and would explain why so much force was being used, as he would have had to push harder in an attempt to get the blade to stay in the slot. That in itself answers the question of competency. No he wasn't or he would not have been using the wrong and defective tool.

My claim of many injuries was, I must admit, based mainly on my own experience working on the tools in the heavy engineering industry (31 years and 20 of those as a first aider) during which time I have had injuries myself (school of hard knocks) and had to give first aid to many others.

The tool described by Jason is the one that we ended up issuing for this job but I too have forgotten the technical name for it (screwfix catalogue may help).

My opinion of the design fault is only in the provision of a slot for the flat bladed screwdriver to be used when there is provision also for the correct tool to be used which would eliminate this type of accident altogehter.

Perhaps in the interests of Section 6(2) of the HASAW Act we should all pass this information on to the manufacturers of these clips?

Posted By Steve Sedgwick
I have known quite a few serious injuries with jubilee clips and hand tools, I bet many of you are aware of similar ones.

Heres one I have had reported on a few times over the years
-Craftsmen (usually aprentices) being struck in the face with a pair of pliers which the were using to pull on or separate something.
PAINFUL |

It is not the pliers or the jubilee clips that are at fault.
Steve