FACTS

1. Many accidents involving utility knives occur for the following reasons:

• • Drawing the knife towards you instead of away from your body.
  • Working with a dull blade. (Dull blades require more pressure, increasing the potential for injury.)
  • Trying to cut more than the knife can handle.
  • Improperly storing the knife with the blade extended.
  • Failing to wear personal protective equipment.
  • Neglecting to inspect the tool before use.

2. There have been cases where workers have suffered injuries from exposed blade tips. This is because the blades did not completely retract into the handle.
3. Problems arise when some employees don’t have or can’t find a utility knife supplied by the company. As a result, they tend to use whatever is handy, such as a pocket knife or other tool with a sharp edge. This can quickly turn hazardous if the tool slips or is used incorrectly.

STATS

• 40% of all injuries attributed to manual workshop tools involve knows with retractable blades.
• In a recent US Department of Labor study, of all injures reported, injuries to fingers and hands accounted for more than 23%, making them the highest in preventable injuries and in terms of lost work days.
• A National Safety Council study reports that the cost of just one disabling hand or finger injury varies from $540 to $26,000 per patient. With a serious upward extremity trauma averaging $730,000 per incident.
• According to a recent Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) study, 70.9% of hand and arm injuries could have been prevented with personal protective equipment (PPE), specifically safety gloves.
• The most common injuries in 2012, according to BLS research was sprains, strains and tears. This includes injuries to the wrist and hand ligament.
• Approximately 8,000 of these injuries required job transfer or restriction in 2012. Healing time for these cases was on average 14 lost working days.
• 110,000 lost-time hand injuries annually
• Hand injuries send more than one million workers to the emergency room each year
• 70 percent of workers who experienced hand injuries were not wearing gloves