High Risk On the Rig - Prevent Injuries and Increase Performance
HIGH RISK ON THE RIG
LOS ANGELES (April 21, 2011) – Workers on oil rigs and refineries battle difficult conditions on a daily basis to get the job done. Hands-down, it’s one of the toughest environments for workers’ hands.
When you consider:
- Hand and finger injuries lead the oil and gas industry’s recordable incidence rates every year. Data from IADC’s 2009 Incident Statistics Program (ISP) indicate that 34% of recordable incidents and 20 percent of lost-time incidents fall in this category.
- As the number of oil and gas industry workers has grown in recent years to more than 400,000, injuries and fatalities are on the rise, too.
- Non-fatal injuries occur at a rate of 2.0 per 100 full-time oil and gas extraction workers, 3.0 for workers in support activities for oil and gas extraction, and 5.4 for drilling oil and gas wells.
- For the oil and gas industry, some 38 percent of insurance claims are hand injuries. This includes finger pinching, severe cuts and abrasions and crushing injuries.
- For oil and gas companies, the impact of each hand injury is more than $4,000 in administrative costs alone.
But one new safety solution is already making headway in reducing hand injuries in this industry. In 2010, Mechanix Wear, the inventor of the high-performance glove category, created an innovative line of high-tech, hard-working oil and gas gloves. Designed through extensive proprietary field research with oil and gas workers in a variety of settings, the unique Safety M-Pact® ORHD gloves deliver excellent grip, water- and oil-resistant performance and structural protection from injuries.
"In the past, oil and gas workers wore cotton or canvas gloves, often going through several pairs a day," said Brian Lunniss, director of research for Mechanix Wear. "This didn’t offer the support they needed to do their jobs effectively or provide the protection they needed to prevent injuries. We spent a great deal of time learning in the field with workers to understand what they really needed in a glove. We have already seen great results in terms of reduced injuries and improved grip and performance. We’re continuing to study this field to see how we can bring additional safety improvements for these workers."
Based on the research and testing, Mechanix Wear engineered the Safety M-Pact® ORHD gloves with:
- The highest level of protection and durability in a safety glove.
- Double-layered Sure-Grip rubberized palm for extra grip in slick situations and EVA foam heel pad to absorb impact.
- Rubber molded exoskeleton from fingertip to wrist with stamped foam pad on top to prevent pinching injuries.
- Highly reflective material on fingertips, wrist and palm to allow for highly visible hand signals on the job.
- High-tech material resistant to drilling lubricants and mud, yet washable for long use.
- Sizes from Small to XX-Large.
