The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced a new rule that significantly changes an employer’s duties to report workplace injuries to OSHA. Under the current rule, employers are only required to report workplace-related fatalities and in-patient hospitalizations of three or more employees to OSHA. Employers must report a qualifying incident to the nearest [...]
Shelby County School Board last year approved a contract with Durham School Services to provide busing for its students through 2015 at a cost of more than $25 million. Durham’s CEO Emeritus, John Elliot, assured the Shelby County School Board that the company is taking steps to implement a three-point safety plan in response to [...]
Big trucks can cause big damage when involved in an accident. An analysis of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration shows nearly 390,000 big-rig accidents between 2009 and 2013, and more than 14,000 people have died as a result of those accidents. Nearly 25% of those deaths involved trucks that had recently been cited with [...]
The Environmental Working Group is a non-profit organization that focuses on the environment and public health. They recently published the Cleaners Hall of Shame list, which includes products containing carcinogens, asthma instigators, and poisons. “Just 7 percent of cleaning products adequately disclosed their contents. To uncover what’s in common household cleaners, EWG’s staff scientists spent [...]
On the afternoon of Wednesday January 21, an accident closed the northbound lanes of I-75 at mile marker 134 near Caryville. The Tennessee Highway Patrol reported that an unknown vehicle hit Lindsey Chapman, 31, who was driving a 2002 Pontiac Grand Am. Ms. Chapman lost control of her vehicle and hit the guardrail cables before [...]
Watching your little one open his or her toys during the holidays can be a wonderful experience. Some toys, however, are less safe than others. W.A.T.C.H., or the World Against Toys Causing Harm, Inc. is a non-profit organization dedicated to informing the public about dangerous children’s toys, products, and activities, like yo-yos, Legos, or jungle [...]
Prescription of controlled substances has been thrust into the national spotlight in recent years. Despite a national crackdown, new data shows doctors have prescribed larger numbers of potent controlled substances to Medicare patients than ever before. Tennessee came in second in the nation (just under Florida) in number of providers who wrote a minimum of [...]
An accident involving two school buses on December 2nd is raising serious questions, and demands serious answers. The Tennessee Depart of Safety and the National Transportation Safety Board are conducting investigations, but police released preliminary findings ahead of the official reports. What We Know So Far According to police, Knox County school bus 44 was [...]
We know that brain damage can affect all of your other body parts and systems, but is the reverse also true? Can a traumatic accident or injury to your spinal cord cause you to develop brain damage? Researchers are the University of Maryland School of Medicine think that it can. They have been studying the [...]
The Takata Corporation supplies airbags to many of the cars we drive. In certain models produced since 2001, however, the airbags have failed to keep people safe; in fact, they have done just the opposite. More than 30 lawsuits have been filed against Takata alleging that that the airbags deploy with such force that drivers [...]
