FACTS

1. Employers are responsible for the safe condition of tools and equipment used by employees, which includes tools and equipment that employees may furnish themselves. It applies to tools such as knives, axes, paper cutters, shovels, hammers, chisels, etc.
2. A US Department of Labor study, 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, they ranked second only to back and neck injuries.
3. It was found that a vast majority of employees who suffer hand injuries were not wearing gloves at the time and that many of those injured were wearing the wrong kind of gloves.
4. Medical costs and disability claims have escalated rapidly and the cost of a single injury multiples with each work day missed.
5. 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.
6. 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.

STATS

Key Hand Injury Statistics:

• 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
• The remaining 30 percent of injured workers did wear gloves, but the gloves were inadequate, damaged or the wrong type for the type of hazard present.
• The National Safety Council Guide:
  • Direct cost of a laceration: $10,000
  • Stitches: $2,000 plus indirect
  • Butterfly: $300
  • Severed Tendon: > $70,000
• The Bureau of Labor Statics reveals that cuts, lacerations and puncture wounds—all injuries commonly associated with hand tool use— accounted for 14,960 of the lost work-time cases in manufacturing during 2017.