As emergency response and local cleanup crews work to respond to accidents, road and property damage resulting from recent flooding, they are exposed to a range of serious hazards. Every year, public employees die during emergency response work, hit by cars, tree limbs, and even via electrocution from live power lines.
Workers killed on the job during 2010 were remembered with Workers' Memorial Day, on Thursday, April 28. Thousands die across the country, and roughly 200 die each year in New York.
"This is not just a day of remembrance, but a time to reflect on the year's on-the-job deaths, ask why they happened, and to resolve to work harder to prevent future tragedies," said Dr. Giulia Earle-Richardson, Deputy Director of NYCAMH. "In 2009, 184 New Yorkers went to work, but never made it back home, leaving families and communities behind."
According to the New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health, 184 people in New York died on the job in 2009. This statistic has improved slightly every year for the past decade, thanks in part to HealthWorks, NYCAMH's rural workplace safety and health program.
The HealthWorks staff work with 600 local, regional and national businesses throughout central New York to improve worker safety and health. They provide health evaluations, which give firefighters a better understanding of their health conditions and potential risks on the job. It also ensures that workers in all industries are not exposed to harmful chemicals or other jobsite hazards. Farmers and farm workers are trained in English and Spanish to make sure that everyone can understand their job and its safety precautions and, ultimately, to prevent worksite tragedies.
HealthWorks' services include wellness initiatives, such as immunizations and health screenings; cardiac risk screening; respiratory protection programs; occupational hearing testing; and drug and alcohol testing.
Last year in Otsego County, HealthWorks administered the hearing tests for the towns, villages and county highway departments and 911 dispatchers, and conducted 1,027 physicals for Otsego County firefighters and EMS workers. These efforts have contributed to reducing rural worker fatalities.
"The thing that makes these workers' deaths a matter for action rather than just sadness is that they are entirely preventable," Earle-Richardson said. Steps as simple as safety harnesses, additional training and better communication can prevent fatal injuries. The HealthWorks team implements these changes each day to make workers healthier and safer on the job.
HealthWorks offers assistance to employers and worksites in developing Worksite Wellness Programs. Call 547-6023, ext. 237, for more information.
The New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health is a program of Bassett Healthcare Network.
Columns
HealthWorks helps keep workers safe on the job
- Big Chuck D'Imperio
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My pal Brucie, savior of Sidney's hospital
Ask any hospital administrators if they've ever heard of a closed hospital in New York state that has ever been re-opened. They will say, "Impossible." In a half century of going through records you can't find any.
Continued ... - Catching a whiff of 'Vermont Vapor'
- Selections from the virtual mailbag
- Recalling days of 'Doughnut King'
- Opera great's visit still a thrilling memory
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My pal Brucie, savior of Sidney's hospital
- Cary Brunswick
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We've become our own worst enemies
The past month has been marked by a seeming unprecedented number of man-made tragedies, as distinct from those caused by violent outbursts of the natural world, such as earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis.
Continued ... - Plenty of blame to go around for Bangladesh horror
- Obama is going against his word on Social Security
- Reflecting on a Florida trip
- Those magnificent spies in their flying machines
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We've become our own worst enemies
- Chuck Pinkey
- Guest Column
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Records seizure is an insult to free press
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
Continued ... - The evangelical view of same-sex marriage
- Manor's fate will be Otsego board's legacy
- A closer look at our economy - Part II
- Use fracking to fill budget gaps
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Records seizure is an insult to free press
- Lisa Miller
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A view from above
Fire towers in the Catskill Mountains have always been destination points, built to capture some of the region’s best views. These sentinel stations served an important role for the earliest possible sightings of forest fires in the remote mountain ranges. But the fire towers and those who manned them fulfilled a multitude of other roles as well.
Continued ... - Being a parent is a constant learning process
- Healthy doesn't have to mean expensive
- A family era ends with close of Potter series
- Independent stores make up for loss of Borders
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- Mark Simonson
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Sunday movies in Oneonta finally shown in 1934
You know an issue is divisive when a vote to resolve it is quite close. In Oneonta during the early 1930s there were probably plenty of discussions or arguments at the family dinner table or sermons from the pulpits on Sunday mornings, regarding whether or should be able to see a movie in Oneonta on Sunday.
Continued ... - Politics, fitness and landmarks dominated local news in May 1968
- Local people sought income in many ways in 1933
- Local windstorm in 1983 caused tense moments
- Disaster, expansions put people to work in May 1913
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- Rick Brockway
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Kids have sparkle in their eyes
When I was in my teens, old Bill Naatz told me about a stream north of Lake George where a man had panned out enough gold to make his wife a wedding band. It was all rumors, but to his grandson and myself, it sounded like the makings of a great adventure.
- People make the outdoors even better
- Turkey season has ups and downs
- Spring air isn't always the freshest
- Adriondacks keep growing and growing
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Kids have sparkle in their eyes
- Sam Pollak
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Using time off in the worst way possible
"You don't mean it," I pleaded. "You simply can't mean it!"
Continued ... - Terror lives on, and there's no end in sight
- Remembering the glory of their times
- Column on guns led to a barrage of (mostly) jeers
- No one is coming to take your guns
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Using time off in the worst way possible
- William Masters
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Schreibman tops Chris Gibson on women's issues
As the time to vote draws near, we need to remember how money can run politics more than we can. Raising funds is a prominent (if not the dominant) task of getting elected. Raising issues is also crucial, but those efforts are subject to distortion and fear-mongering.
- Republicans feelentitled to allthey can garner An entitlement is a legal benefit available from the government to individuals who are within a defined category of recipients, such as needing insurance for unemployment or health services.
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Romney focuses on self; Obama emphasizes unity
Mitt Romney criticizes President Obama for saying a person's success is rooted in his community, and is not all his alone. Romney belittles this with his belief in individual initiative. He is better at the put-down than the push-up.
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Romney shows little regard for common man
The Republicans in Congress have voted over and over, 33 times, redundantly and uselessly, to rescind what they call Obamacare.
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Scouts' gay ban creates problem where none exists
The Boy Scouts of America's "emphatic reaffirmation" of its vow to exclude any and all homosexuals from its hallowed ranks is ill-considered and pathetic, especially in view of its having reviewed the matter for two years.
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Schreibman tops Chris Gibson on women's issues
