Tuesday, August 16, 2011

APNewsBreak: OSHA finds safety gaps in Yale death

(AP) ? A piece of lab machinery that killed a Yale University student when it ensnared her hair was missing required safeguards, and the accident exposed problems with the school's safety policies, federal safety investigators said.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration in a letter obtained by The Associated Press, told school officials that it found numerous problems in the machine shop where Michele Dufault was killed on April 12.

Dufault, a physics and astronomy major, who was close to graduating, was working alone in the lab when her hair was pulled into a fast-spinning lathe.

The lathe, built in 1962, lacked an emergency stop button that could shut off power and was missing physical guards to protect the operator, OSHA wrote in the letter. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter Tuesday through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The OSHA letter says rules for using the equipment, including warnings, were not posted. Surveys of personal protective equipment were not completed and documented, and safety inspections did not address machine safeguarding, according to the letter.

A message for a Yale spokesman was not immediately returned.

School officials said after the accident that the university was stepping up its safety training and would limit access by undergraduate students to specified hours when monitors were present.

Yale has said Dufault completed a safety course that included instructions to tie back long hair.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-08-16-Yale%20Lab%20Accident/id-a074081f2d4c4352949bb41fc41d865a

jay z and kanye west watch the throne london eye funbrain london england silver prices florence nightingale

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.