Hand injuries are not necessarily life threatening, but they can be very painful, inconvenient and frustrating. Regardless of the variation in different hand injuries, over 70% of the injuries occur when the person isn’t wearing gloves. We’ve told you this fun fact before and we’ll tell you again because we feel it necessary to drive home the importance of protecting your hands. Your injury has already occurred so right now there’s no point in recommending safety gloves as a solution! What we can do, however, is give you some simple steps that you should follow in the scenario of a hand injury. This is probably worth having a brief read of if you don’t want to be running around like a headless chicken in the face of a crisis.
STEP ONE
The first step is a bit of a no brainer – get help. If you’re bleeding heavily or lacking fingers or parts of fingers, get emergency help immediately as you don’t want to lose too much blood. In the case of the more minor injuries like small cuts and burns, a first aid agent on site can treat the injury. If the first aid representative isn’t sure about the extent of the injury, it would definitely be worth getting it checked at a medical care facility to prevent it from getting worse.
STEP TWO
If the accident is serious, the site may need to be closed off quickly and employees evacuated calmly in order to avoid any repeat accidents, and to allow investigations into the accident to be carried out. Any gatherable details must be noted down.
STEP THREE
When the scene of the incident is secured, the next step is making a record of the injury in the company accident book (which every business should have!). When determined, the equipment and materials involved in the accident must be recorded in case time off work is required, or in claiming compensation. The information can also be used to prevent such scenarios in the future.
STEP FOUR
Many injuries involving hands can result in weeks out of action for the victim. Understandably, it can be hard for an employee to return to his or her job after these long periods away. A way to help this is to implement a return-to-work or transitional modified job program to help the employee become productive again as quickly as possible. It will keep workers from taking long-term disability leave and also lower costs for the employer.
STEP FIVE
Figure out how to prevent it happening again. If a serious accident has taken place, it might be a pointer for your company to revisit current risk assessments and carry out a thorough evaluation to see what you’ve overlooked previously. Was the machinery faulty and your employees had just gotten used to it?
WE'RE HERE TO HELP
If you have any other questions, our hand safety specialists are happy to discuss any issues you have on site and arrange a visit if you're looking to improve your glove range and increase safety awareness amongst staff. Get in touch with our team today and take the prevention route rather than waiting for the injury to happen!
