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Posted By Robert.
One of our employees was subject to an unusual "on-site" accident!!
He was crouching down and (as he put it) the steel toe cap didn't provide enough flex and resulted in a dislocated big toe (ouch).
He was wearing rigger boots which I know have been subject to some critsism of late. His boots were correctly sized and reasonably new and, as he put it, as comfortable as rigger boots can be at site.
Is this an accident, a design issue, or the individual maybe ignoring a factor of discomfort. He was off work for two days.
Anybody come across something relatively similar?
Robert.
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Posted By MichaelM
Robert
It would be an accident. However, PPE has to be suitable and sufficient and must not interfere with the work in the way described as it obviously does not suite the task being performed. The employee should not be blamed as this is not what H&S is about. The route cause may be that the employee has been told to get on with some work and the dislocation may have happened so fast that there was not a chance to stand up. Perform an accident investigation to get to the route of this and if necessary make changes to the PPE worn.
Michael
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Posted By John-Mark
Not all that much of an oddity really. A relative of mine was involved in a workplace accident where his foot was caught in some equipment and the steel toe cap got squashed inwards, breaking his toe.
Incidentally, for anyone who employs motorcyclists, or requires employees to ride motorbikes in their job, this is why steel toe capped boots are not recommended to be worn by bikers. Again, in the event of the rider being involved in a road accident, the toecap can cause additional injuries to the rider's foot.
JM
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Posted By John Webster
I seem to remember (dim & distant time again) some makes of boots were part of a scheme whereby if the user was injured by the toe-cap collapsing in, they paid compensation. Did they? and is this still going?
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Posted By Robert.
Thanx for the replies, i would like to add:
The PPE is suitable and sufficient.
Our employes have the freedom to choose their safety footwear so long as it meets our internal spec. (this has been the only incident of its kind in our company).
Nobody has blamed or is blaming the guy. All I implied was that sometimes, just somtimes, we as humans do tend to ignore minor discomforts if they are very very short term, and not say a thing. Anyway thats behavioural safety, and I'm not going there. This was not the case in this situation. How do you blame somebody for dislocatiing their toe?? We agreed that getting up too fast was a contributing factor, this needed little time for investigation and there was a reasonably quick conclusion,as I couldnt ask him to show me how he done it using the other foot!! He still feels comfortable with his chosen boots.
Compensation from the manufacturers, yes, I've heard othat before. I don't know if it went anywhere, and we in our company have not (yet) adopted the much publicised Americanised compensation claim culture.
I guess I'll put this one down to an accident caused by the PPE (footwear) which could restrict the movement of toes when an individual is in a certain position.
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