Real Accidents, Real Stories: Occupational Respiratory Illness

It's often the things you can't see that end up hurting you the most. Take, for instance, the dust that pours into the air while you drill into rock. The silica doesn't seem harmful at first, but continuous exposure to it is extremely fatal.

Respiratory illnesses from real workplace environments

Factories are rarely held responsible for their blatant disregard for employee respiratory health unless they are caught red-handed. This has led to some of the worst industrial catastrophes, such as the Hawk's Tunnel Disaster, a worksite near Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, that killed an estimated 750 to 2,000 employees, out of a total 5,000 employees, within just a few years. It was a historic event that forever set the standard for employee safety when it came to drilling, mining or any type of work that involved dust. Silica still endangers 2.2 million workers a year, OSHA reported.

Respiratory illnesses derived from occupational hazards often take so long to develop that they don't become the factory's responsibility, but instead the executive staff at the time. This happened in Milan, Italy, according to the BBC. In 2015, 11 former board members of Pirelli, a highly respected Italian tire company, were convicted of manslaughter for the 20 deaths of workers that were employed in their factory between 1979 and 1989.

Relatives of the deceased fought hard for the courts to recognize the conditions of the factories at Pirelli directly contributed to their family members' deaths years down the line. All of the deaths were linked to asbestos exposure.

Working with chemicals, dust and any small particles requires personal protection equipment.

OSHA recently brought the hammer down after remaining quiet on the matter for many years. According to Slate magazine, OSHA has admitted that their regulations for 470 chemical exposure limits are outdated, and received a lot of flack for the way they handle these cases. Recently, though, the Lake Compounce Family Theme Park was fined $70,000 by OSHA for gross infractions that included failure to monitor workers' health when handling extremely hazardous chemicals, failure to train employees to work with said chemicals and the inability to provide them with personal protective equipment, or PPE. OSHA may have saved the world from another occupational respiratory disaster.

Previously featured on NMC's Safety Matters Blog.

For more information on MSC's line of respiratory protection, please visit the Safey landing page.