The Many Costs of Neglecting Your Heat Safety Plan
It’s easy to think of heat stress as causing cramps, vomiting and even fainting. However, a severe heat illness like heat stroke can forever change or end a person’s life.
- By M.B. Sutherland
- Mar 01, 2022
We often call heat stress a slow-moving injury in that it happens over a period of time, often without the sufferer being aware that they are in trouble. Heat illness is far more common than most people know, with eleven workers seriously injured or even dying from heat stress each and every day. This is particularly tragic given that it’s an injury that’s 100 percent preventable with the right preparation and knowledge.
While most workplaces know that they need to provide the big three – rest, shade and hydration – many don’t realize that those can fall short in especially hot, humid or heavy work conditions. It is crucial for your workers, your safety program and for your company’s bottom line to go beyond the basics to develop a comprehensive heat safety plan.
Monetary Costs
Those eleven daily injuries translate to thousands of people every year, and with an average price tag of $53,589 for each incident, it adds up to millions of dollars, not including any additional wrongful death lawsuits that may be filed or other judgements that may be leveled against your company. Those are the monetary costs, which are significant. But there are other, even more serious costs as well.
Costs to Worker Health & Well-Being
It is easy to think of heat stress as causing cramps, vomiting and even fainting. However, a severe heat illness like heat stroke can forever change or end a person’s life.
Organ Damage. If your body temperature gets high enough to cause a heat stroke, important systems begin to suffer irreparable damage. That can mean brain damage, heart, liver or kidney damage, or even compromised muscle tissue. Organs can swell to the point of injury or be damaged enough to require dialysis or a kidney transplant. It doesn’t happen only to those with underlying conditions, it can happen to healthy workers too.
Compromised Heat Tolerance. Heat Tolerance is the amount of heat your body can endure without becoming ill – including how much time you can spend in the heat. Many heat stroke survivors find that their body overheats faster than it did before their illness. Their body may not be able to sweat as efficiently, hampering its ability to cool down in hot conditions and they show signs of heat illness sooner and in cooler temperatures than before. This may mean they need to drop out of the labor workforce entirely.
This article originally appeared in the March 1, 2022 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.