OCR Text |
Show Engineer Corps Has Half the Accidents Of Private Industry The army's corps of engineers has achieved a reduction of 45 per cent in accident frequency and 31 per cent in accident severity below that of private construction. As compared with the accident rates for the five-year period, 1936 to 1940, it is estimated that the engineers' en-gineers' safety program during the past two fiscal years has saved more than 1,000 lives, averted 34,908 lost-time lost-time injuries, and prevented the loss of 6,306,374 man-days, with the saving sav-ing in wages of workers amounting to $46,604,104. Regulations of the corps, rigidly adhered to, require that all lost-time accidents on construction projects over which the corps has jurisdiction jurisdic-tion be reported. The statistics so gathered, comprising the greatest mass of construction accident statistics statis-tics and case histories everassembled, everassem-bled, have shown what practices cause the accidents, thereby enabling en-abling the engineers to take preventive pre-ventive measures. Strict Code Enforced. When the army's construction program pro-gram was expanded in 1941 to the greatest the world has ever known, specific uniform safety requirements were established by the engineers and compliance enforced in all construction con-struction contracts. Outstanding among the requirements require-ments were those providing for mobile mo-bile first aid stations; central infirmaries in-firmaries staffed with trained nurses under the supervision of one or more full-time physicians on all projects where a thousand or more workers were employed; the employment of a full-time safety engineer on all similar projects, and the maintenance mainte-nance of a first aid log at all field stations and infirmaries. The current program is placing the most stress on the proper use of heavy construction equipment which, although responsible for but 25 per cent of the total injuries, causes up to 52 per cent of the time lost in all accidents on construction projects. |