FACTS

1. Workers are seriously injured every day due to failure to properly lockout-tagout equipment/machinery.
2. In addition to caught-in exposure, workers face struck-by, crushing, electric shock, burn, and other hazards when maintenance work is done without properly controlling the release of energy, i.e., through a lockout/tagout (LOTO) program.
3. Workers across America service machines every day, which can be dangerous if the correct procedures are not followed. Many serious injuries, even fatalities, have occurred when workers thought a machine they were servicing, or its power source was turned off. Machines can unexpectedly start up because of stored energy that was not properly released or by another employee who didn’t realize it wasn’t safe to turn on. These types of incidents can be avoided by lockout-tagout (LOTO), which disables the equipment and prevents the release of hazardous energy while service and maintenance is performed.
4. Lockout is an essential component to eliminate accident risks by cutting out all hazardous energy sources from the equipment. You also need a lockout procedure, a reference document indicating a series of vital information such as the lockout work sequence and the unlocking procedure.

STATS

• Every year, between 150 and 200 fatalities and some 50,000 injuries occur due to failure to control the release of hazardous energy, lockout/tagout (LOTO) procedures account for one of the most-cited OSHA violations each year. In 2019, the LOTO Standard 29 CFR 1910.147 “Control of Hazardous Energy” placed fourth in OSHA’s Top 10 list of most-cited violations with 2,975 total violations: higher than the previous year.
• In a study conducted by the United Auto Workers (UAW), 20% of the fatalities that occurred among their members were attributed to inadequate lockout/tagout and hazardous energy control procedures.
• The Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada established that a total of 2.5 fatal accidents occur in Canadian workplaces each day. In addition to these deaths, 239,643 accident reports or work-related illnesses are added daily to that number. Severe accidents are often caused when a body part makes contact with live or mechanical parts of moving equipment, hazardous chemical products or pressurized fluids that are suddenly released.
• The 328 electrical occupation fatalities that occurred between 2011 and 2019, lockout/tagout procedure malfunction was the cause in 44 cases, or 13.4%. This was the third leading cause of electrical occupation fatalities.