Dave:

Dave and Bacon Safety Tales. The only industrial safety pod cast that brings you common sense advice on job site safety, standards, regulations, and industry best practices without putting you to sleep.

Fred:

Seventh Heaven, they call this episode. Thank you for joining us today. Fred here with Quad City Safety. I'm here with my buddy, Dave.

Dave:

Hey now.

Fred:

We're here to talk about the topic of the day. It's a very special episode. Hearing protection. The hearing protection episode makes me think of my-

Dave:

You know why hearing is so important?

Fred:

I'm trying to think of something real overly dramatic that would be on a greeting card. I'm coming up with nothing.

Dave:

No. As my grandmother, God bless her soul, well she's still alive, and-

Fred:

God bless her soul though.

Dave:

Yeah. She's a very sweet lady, and she's got the Alzheimer's. And Alzheimer's has actually been directly linked to hearing loss, because when you have hearing loss you kind of, you come out of your natural selves, and the way your brain function is a little bit different. So I'd like to believe that if today we change somebodies life and get them paying attention to hearing conservation and hearing, that maybe they won't be that person in their 90's that has a run-on sentence that repeats. And you love them to death, and it's just painful for everybody.  So just remember that there's a lot going on here.

Fred:

I was going to stomp all over that before you got pretty sentimental there. My Little John impression, where you said you haven't seen it, but there's a Chapelle show skit. Are you familiar with the Chapelle show when it was on, and it was running hard?

Dave:

Yep. He just came out with a new-

Fred:

Netflix special.

Dave:

Yeah, it's pretty-

Fred:

Two episodes. Yeah, two of them. Yeah, it's quality.

Dave:

It's pretty good stuff, man. You got to appreciate a black guy that keeps it real and lives in like a white neighborhood in Pennsylvania or whatever.

Fred:

Yep. So anyways, he did his Little John skit, and basically Little John was a rapper. He was the one, "From the windows to the walls. Til the sweat drips down my balls." No? Not ringing a bell?

Dave:

No, no.

Fred:

Oh boy. I really was looking for more feedback there, but anyways, he goes "What? What? What?" Anyways, go ahead, never mind, we'll cut that. So, Dave, do you want to tell your story for the day?

Dave:

My story for the day. Well you know again it goes back to kind of growing up and being in Tennessee, north Tennessee, from Kentucky obviously that I talked about. It all centers around things that ... There's a lot of bad decisions, and then I'll go into other things that happened, but it was always centered around the fact that hearing conservation wasn't really paid very close attention to in these stories. And they were centered around the fact that my grandfather fought in World War II, and he had some rifles that we loved to shoot, and they were 8 mm Mauser's, pistols 9 mm Luger's. He had an old double-barrel shotgun that was nothing better than to load up both barrels of that and let them go at the same time. A lot of kick. I can remember shooting ground hogs and shooting clay pigeons, and just shooting stupid stuff just for the fun of it. And the funny, but not funny, part of it is looking back, is we did all this stuff, and I don't even think we tried to wad up like a piece of tissue paper and put it in our ear.

So usually you would shoot the guns or even when we would head to concerts and we would hit- Youth group would go to Stryper, and that was kind of like the heavy metal rock band back there in the '80's. Or we would go see the Kentucky Headhunters and Charlie Daniels at the Kentucky State Fair. You would always walk back, and whether it was a rifle, a shotgun, Stryper, or the Kentucky Headhunters, and you would just have this impeding ringing in your ear.

Fred:

Yeah.

Dave:

And the thing was, it was the greatest thing ever, but I'm yelling because I can't really hear what you're saying right now. I see your lips moving, but I have this ring.

Fred:

Do you hear the words that are coming out of my mouth?

Dave:

Yeah.

Fred:

I know. I had some of that just living in Iowa City for a time. You would come out of a bar that was noisy enough, and your ears would be ringing from the house music that's playing. You're dancing on the-

Dave:

What were you doing in Iowa City?

Fred:

I lived there.

Dave:

Oh, that's right.

Fred:

Yeah. I lived there for like four or five years.

Dave:

You did some schooling there.

Fred:

I did some schooling there, met my wife there.

Dave:

Oh yeah. Beautiful lady.

Fred:

Thank you. Yep. So I don't know, was that the whole, was that the story?  Guns, Stryper?

Dave:

Oh, but the whole thing is the things that we've done in our lives that are just ... We had a great time, and bad decision.

Fred:

Gotcha.

Dave:

And I think even now I probably don't hear as well as I probably could based off the stuff that I did when I was a kid. Hell, I was probably an adult. I can remember within the last 10 years of somebody goes, "Check this pistol out." And without really thinking about it, I turned around and popped off a couple of rounds, and the next thing I know I'm in the car on the way home, and I'm like "Beep". It's kind of like the TV goes off line in the middle of the night.

Fred:

Yeah.

Dave:

Just this constant tone, and I'm like-

Fred:

Which that hasn't happened probably-

Dave:

Man.

Fred:

Fifteen years?

Dave:

What's that?

Fred:

The TV going off like that. That doesn't happen anymore.

Dave:

No, I don't beat that anymore. The kids have to shut it off at like 8:45.

Fred:

Yeah.

Dave:

Are you kidding me?

Fred:

There's always something. I mean Ron Popeil is always on with a new invention.

Dave:

Yeah, in the middle of the night.

Fred:

Yeah, so-

Dave:

You got to love some infomercials.

Fred:

Yep.

Dave:

I got to get me one of them goddamn pillows.

Fred:

Which pillow? See, I'm not an infomercial guy anymore. I miss out on the-

Dave:

The guy in Minnesota that's making the pillows that are like $300 pillows.

Fred:

Is that the guy that's got a checkered past? They started finding out- My Pillow? Is that the one you're talking about?

Dave:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fred:

Oh, you've got to look into that guy's past. He's got some skeletons in his closet that as the fame has gone on. There's something about, I don't know, alleged things that are going on with that guy. The My Pillow guy.

Dave:

I did not know that.

Fred:

Yeah. Check it out.

Dave:

He wears a cross in all of his commercials, so-

Fred:

Of course he does.

Dave:

So he's probably not legit.

Fred:

I don't know. There are Catholic priests wearing a cross too. There's some shenanigans.

Dave:

Right.

Fred:

There's some shenanigans that went on since you wear a cross. I've seen a couple of running backs wear crosses and then get in some trouble for some domestic abuse that's going-

Dave:

A little wife beating?

Fred:

Yeah. There's some sketchy people out there.

Dave:

Yeah.

Fred:

But, alright, when we talk hearing protection, I got baselines, short term, and long term shifts [crosstalk 00:07:59]

Dave:

So like anytime we go into an environment, before we even know that we've got a chance for hearing loss, you should always record a baseline. An audiologist can really record that. And it kind of gets where we hear today because it's just like anything. It's a measurable value, so over time it's going to change. The thing is, is usually your hearing, how do you say it? I don't think I've ever read anywhere where somebody's hearing got better. It usually degrades or gets worse. So in an occupational situation, or even ... It doesn't even have to be occupational. I mean a lot of places will do that baseline study to where you can get a baseline of how you hear today, that then gives you the ability to be tested later and see, have you had hearing loss.

And when I say a short term and a long term hearing loss, is a lot of times we will have a short term hearing loss, and that short term hearing loss is just like when we go out there and we pop 9 mm Luger's or 8 mm Mauser's or 30-06, or 12 gauges, or .45 long Colt, whatever pistol gun, rifle we're shooting, or whether we're jamming out to some AC/DC or some Metallica, maybe some Slipknot, whatever that is, we'll have a little bit of a short term hearing loss, which is kind of that ringing, but it's a short term hearing loss that comes back.  It doesn't affect that long term baseline, but if we were to do that on a daily basis and submit our ears to that sound pressure and how that sound pressure affects all the little guts of our ears, meaning the cilia, the little hairs, and the features of the ear that really give us the ability to hear sound, over time as we damage those obviously day in and day out, meaning we're obviously talking about occupational safety and health.

So it may be that hammer drill that we listen to every day. It may be a press that slams down. It can be any number of things that we're subjected too. And again it's time, and time, and time, and time without really protecting our hearing, we're going to eventually have that shift where the baseline of how we hear and the quality of sound that we hear today, in five years there's going to be some level of degradation to that.  So it's going to degrade over time to where we have that shift in our long term hearing. So it's not just a short term effect.

Fred:

Yeah. I feel like I saw, I don't know if it was a video or if it was a display or something that somebody had, but it actually showed inside the ear the little hairs that as you hear something sounds comes out. It's like the little hairs in there like flatten out. It's like noise is coming in, they're flattening out, and then they bounce back. And then they flatten out, and then they bounce back. But like over time-

Dave:

But eventually they don't bounce back.

Fred:

They don't bounce back. Especially with like the certain volumes, right?

Dave:

Correct.

Fred:

It gets harder and harder and harder for them to bounce back.

Dave:

Yeah, those sound levels, the sound pressure that kind of microwaves and cooks them out to where they don't respond.

Fred:

Yeah, so that's no good. So you wear ear plugs at work. Most likely you're not wearing them correctly. I think you probably need to spend some time talking about how to properly insert an ear plug.

Dave:

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fred:

Because people are not, they're not doing it right.

Dave:

Well day in and day out, you kind of walk in there, and if it looks like somebody just kind of set it up in there somehow, that's not really what it's meant to do.

Fred:

And you look at somebody looking like Frankenstein with ear plugs sticking out of their ears.

Dave:

Yeah. They almost look like they're just trying to balance them there, instead of really being inserted. So when you look at properly wearing hearing protection, I would say probably 75% of the market is a disposable or a roll  down product. So it's made of an expandable material that we make smaller, and it gets larger. So the first thing that we do is we roll it down, then we try to put it into our ear, insert it into the ear canal, and then it expands. But the first thing that people don't do is they don't roll it all the way down. So again you have to like you're rolling a cigarette or whatever, you kind of roll it down. You get it smaller, and then you insert it into the ear canal. You don't just set it at the base of the ear canal. It's almost kind of like a Q-Tip deep kind of stuff. Do you know what I mean? You're not trying to poke yourself in the eardrum, but you're trying to get down there and try to do like a little bit of a swab with it.

Fred:

That's one of my favorite things, speaking of infomercials, the Wax-Vac.

Dave:

The Wax-

Fred:

I think it's called the Wax-Vac. It's like a vacuum to suck ear wax out of your ear.

Dave:

Oh yeah. It's got like a kid on it that freaks out at the end or something. Right?

Fred:

The one I remember is like a middle-aged guy. He's got kind of that aggressive look like I'm curious to know what goes on. He definitely swings at his wife every once in a while. Those things. But he's sitting there working the Q-Tip in his ear. I'll get away from the microphone here. He's like sitting there, and he goes, "BAH!"

Dave:

Yeah.

Fred:

He pokes himself right in the brain, which we've all done that. I know I'm guilty. I get in there real good with the Q-Tip, and I've touched brain a couple times.

Dave:

Maybe not Q-Tip good. Maybe that's too far, but you've got to get in there. I mean a little bit more than just the tip. You've got to kind of get in there a little bit.

Fred:

You don't want to play just the tip.

Dave:

Nope. You've got to get in there a little deeper, a little deeper.

Fred:

There's something too to grabbing your ... You're supposed to reach behind your head, grab the top of your ear-

Dave:

Yeah. Well basically as you reach over the top of your head and you kind of pull your ear, you kind of pull it open, and if you kind of insert Q-Tip deep, just the tip, then you kind of get that ear plug situated in that ear canal because, again, you're really trying to block that hole, or that opening to where you're putting something that resists sound and that pressure from entering the ear canal.

Fred:

Fair enough. Alright. How about we talk about calculating noise reduction ratings or NRR?

Dave:

Oh boy! That one drives me crazy.

Fred:

Cray Cray!

Dave:

Cray Cray! And the reason it drives me crazy is because people look at it, and they go, "Well the box says 30. I put it in my ear, I get 30." That is probably the largest misconception piece of shit information in safety that people can get. And the reason is is that's in some kind of lab situation. So when we look, first of all as people, as we just talked about, don't insert hearing protection right anyway. So the fact that we don't even have it right from the beginning will yield the fact that they're not going to get the protection factor that they need anyway. Basically, they didn't even insert it correctly the first time, so you're not even getting the protection factor because it's not inserted like it would be in a lab.

The second part of it is the materials that the hearing protection is made of may not expand to everybody's ear canal, whether people have narrow or larger ear canals. They're not all consistent. So again, it's not laboratory the same size. So you're putting an ear plug that may fit a child better, or somebody that has a large ear canal, it may fit them better. Followed by the fact that we've talked about how they're inserted. We've talked about size of the ear canal. But basically, that box is going after a, for lack of a better way of putting it, kind of a lab situation, a perfect case scenario of if I took that plug and put it in there perfectly what the noise reduction rating would be.

The rule of thumb that you should really take when you're looking at that is that, let's say we'll just use big, round numbers, is the NRR on the box says 30.

Fred:

Yeah.

Dave:

A better way to get to what noise level you can be in is we can be up to 85 decibels is kind of the trigger level under ocean. Once we're above that 85, well 84.9, once we get to 85, that's our trigger level. We need to really pay attention, and we need to have a hearing conservation program. We need to institute plugs in there, or a hearing conservation program that would require hearing protection. So the rule of thumb is to take that NRR value and say it is 30. So we are going to subtract 7 from that value. Then whatever value we get from there, then we're going to divide it by two. So if we are in 85 decibels, and we are exposed to ... Let's say we've done a noise survey or we've put an industrial hygienist in there that's gone out there and figured out that there's an exposure of 100 decibels.

Fred:

Right.

Dave:

So we would need to really have in excess of 15 decibels of coverage to satisfy that. And we sit there with a plug that says it has an NRR of 30, we would theoretically go, "We're good." We're not, because if we were to actually fit test or test the NRR that people are getting, they're not getting that factor.

Fred:

Okay.

Dave:

They're not getting 30 decibels of coverage. If you take that 30, you subtract 7, divide by 2, that's realistically the level of protection that you're getting. So if we took-

Fred:

Whatever the rating is minus 7, divided by 2.

Dave:

Yep.

Fred:

That's kind of the-

Dave:

That's a SWAG. Scientific Wild Ass Guess.

Fred:

Gotcha.

Dave:

I mean it's not what's on the box. Every manufacturer would love for you to ... I mean think about it. If it was what was on the box, so if you're at 85 and you added 30 to it.

Fred:

Right.

Dave:

Ninety-five, 105, 115. You ought to be able to sit there and watch jet planes zip over your head with those in there based on the decibel ratings that their sound pressure-

Fred:

But that's in a perfect, in a perfect scenario that does not exist.

Dave:

Yeah. That ain't real. Ain't real.

Fred:

Okay. What is your opinion on double and up then? So like wearing a muff on top of an ear plug, or do you have an opinion on that?

Dave:

Plug and a muff.

Fred:

Plug and a muff?

Dave:

In situations where people get in very high decibel situations or where there's a lot of noise going on, is people sometimes believe that you've got to stack them.

Fred:

Right.

Dave:

The problem is there's not a lot of science in it. It's kind of like if I'm cold and I have one blanket, if I had a second blanket I'm going to be 100% better than I was the first time, because I added another blanket.

Fred:

Or you're wearing a condom, and you put on a second condom to prevent that from-

Dave:

Yeah. I mean, you're like-

Fred:

That pregnancy. I'm doubling.

Dave:

Yeah, so I was ... There you go. If I double bag it, I mean the first one, I think in Health class they told me, there's like 95% chance. So the next time I'm like 95 and 95, so it must be-

Fred:

Doubling the 95 is better than 100.

Dave:

97.5, but there's still a chance that it's going to happen.

Fred:

Oh.

Dave:

It's a classic misnomer of if I got that second one on there, that should really do it versus the first one. Nope. Not the case. So you can't sit there and go, "Well, shit! I had 30 decibels plus 30 more decibels, so I had 60 on top of that. I should literally be able to listen to a plane break the sound barrier and listen to the crack and stand next to it and not be phased."

Fred:

Yeah.

Dave:

No. That ain't how it works.

Fred:

Okay. So really you say that does not work in any scenario? There's no scenario where adding an ear muff, or is that just a fail safe-

Dave:

No, you will-

Fred:

For that level?

Dave:

In a high decibel situation, you can increase the reduction in noise by adding the second device.

Fred:

Okay.

Dave:

The misnomer is that you can just add-

Fred:

Double it.

Dave:

Just add them up and go, "Okay, I know my exposure is this, and I get this from this, and I get this from this, so I'm fine."

Fred:

Okay.

Dave:

And in high noise exposures, there's actually tables at how much time you're even supposed to be exposed to it. I don't remember what those are off the top of my head, but I know that they exist.

Fred:

Okay. So if you've got a drawer full of like economy ear plugs, you think that's enough. What else do we need to know about in your hearing conservation program?

Dave:

Well in your hearing conservation program, it's not once size fits all. It's kind of like you shouldn't have just one type of safety glass because you have different face types. So whether it's male versus female, whether it's different ethnicities, the same goes with hearing protection. Having a one size fits all is kind of a bullshit methodology to provide safety to your industrial athlete. They're out there working hard for you, trying to get things done. And to give everybody the same thing, that's not fair. And fair, let's throw that out the door. It's not right because people need different things that fit different.

Fred:

Okay.

Dave:

And you need to have a couple options. It's kind of loosely mentioned within the standards that you need more than one option.

Fred:

Is there a certain amount that you're required- You're supposed to have two, you're supposed to have three?

Dave:

You need to have more than one. How about that?

Fred:

Okay. So that's just options to pick from most likely?

Dave:

Correct.

Fred:

So the green ear plug might fit somebody different than the orange ear plug, and the red ear plug might fit someone a little bit differently than the green or the orange.

Dave:

Correct. There's plus out there that one end is larger than the other end, so you can flip it back and forth depending on the ear canals.

Fred:

Okay. Fair enough. Alright. Well it's time for our favorite segment, "The Dumbass of the Week".

It's the dumbass of the week.

Dave:

It's the dumbass of the week.

Fred:

Alright. So fictional name. Let's call him Little John. You want to know what did Little John do. Little John-

Dave:

Little teeth.

Fred:

What?

Dave:

Well, you know he's got those-

Fred:

Oh, his gold teeth?

Dave:

Yeah.

Fred:

You said little teeth. I was like, "What?" Gold teeth.

Dave:

Little John has little teeth.

Fred:

Little John has little teeth. So he's got his little teeth, and he goes, "Okay!" But Little John works in a factory.  Little John wears leather gloves every day. So sometimes Little John likes to get into those little sharp ... He needs to get his fingers in to really do the job, so what Little John does is he takes his glove off. There might be a sharp application where he really should be wearing his glove, but he thinks, "You know what? I'm just going to take this glove off just this one little time so I can reach in, grab my little bolt or screw that I need to grab, and get on with my day." So maybe Little John is not wearing the correct glove for the application that he's currently doing, but Little John is supposed to get the work done at all costs.

So he takes off his leather glove, and he reaches in, and all the sudden the blade comes and slices Little John's hand. He's not wearing a glove. There's blood squirting everywhere. Little John is blinded. Luckily, he's wearing his glasses, his sunglasses inside.

Dave:

Oh yeah.

Fred:

He goes, "Oh Yeah!" But his hand's all cut up. His brains are in the way. You know how Little John does. So Little John is going to have to go to the hospital and get about 25 stitches on his hand, so-

Dave:

Maybe get like half a finger put on?

Fred:

I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what happens. We'll see if they come up with a medical miracle to save his finger. But what-

Dave:

He got his gold teeth.

Fred:

What should Little John have done differently?

Dave:

Quite a bit.

Fred:

There's a lot there.

Dave:

A lot, lot, lot, lot. Number one is anytime we look at anything from an occupational safety and health fact, is could we have engineered out the hazard, meaning John had a job where he had to put his hand in a way to where he could actually cut his finger off. That's a problem. So first of all, we should have tried to look into it and figure out, is there a way that we could engineer out this hazard.

The second part of it is, it is 2017, people. If y'all notice, my cohort, Fred, said he had a leather glove on. Love leather driver's gloves. They're good in they do a lot of different things, but again it is 2017. I will reiterate that it is 2017. It's almost 2018. It's 2017, so there's a lot of technology, so there's a lot of fibers that are heat resistant, cut resistant, chemical resistant, combinations of heat and chemical, heat and ... We could sit there and rattle through the matrices to understand what hazards we have hand protection for, but the truth of the matter is today, if you have to take your glove off to do your job, you probably are wearing the wrong glove. So again, had Little John had as much respect for his hand as he did for his gold teeth, he would have done his due diligence to make sure that he had on the right hand protection. Meaning in this situation, he cut his finger off and needed cut resistance. He needed tactile sensation because he had to get in there, and he had to pull something small out.

So had he gone and done his homework and found a cut resistant fiber that he had the finger agility to pick up those little pieces ... Maybe he didn't cut his finger off. Maybe he just had a smash or a contusion.

Fred:

Maybe he was just getting a Band-Aid.

Dave:

Or just a minor laceration or something. So sometimes we're not completely ... We're mitigating. We're not solving everything that could happen. We're not making everything Superman bulletproof, but we are trying to minimize any damage that happens. Because again if we're wearing personal protective equipment, we've identified that there is a hazard that somebody can be hurt, and we have put them in things where we say when the shit hits the fan, hopefully this minimizes what happens to them. Not that it keeps it from happening. We minimize the damage for that risk.

Fred:

So part of it is on Little John because he took his glove off. He knew that there was a hazard there because he was wearing gloves in the first place. But part of it has got to be on Little John's company for probably not providing him with the correct protective equipment.

Dave:

Yeah. They should have looked into why is he even sticking his hand in there. Because most likely, more often than not, there's engineered controls that stop the machine so that it's not moving. There's a number of ways that we could minimize the risk or that potential cause that caused him to obviously lose a finger. Losing a finger, losing anything ... I like all 10 of mine.

Fred:

Yeah. They're all good.

Dave:

Yeah. I don't play piano. I'm not an artist. A couple of them I only pick boogers with. I don't know, but at the end of the day I'd like to have all of them.

Fred:

Do you got anybody in mind that you know of that has an odd losing a finger story? You got a good losing a finger story? I have a teacher that was one of my fourth grade teachers, and he lost his basketball. He was playing basketball, and he was wearing his wedding ring, and went up and caught his hand in the net, and it took his finger. His wedding ring caught in the net, and the finger got completely tore right off. Any of those? You got any of those?

Dave:

I do have one. It was a person that I know, and he had been in an industrial accident. He had kind of lost half of a finger.

Fred:

Okay.

Dave:

And we were at a concert at a band that we had seen multiple times. And he looked at me, and he goes, "This is the fifth time that we've seen them." But when he stuck up his hand, he goes, "We've seen this band five times." And I looked at his hands, and I'm like-

Fred:

Like four fingers sticking up?

Dave:

Well, wait a second. We've only been there four and a half times? I'm not sure how to take this. So yeah, don't be that guy.

Fred:

Yeah, don't be that guy. So Little John, you a dumbass.

Anyway, so let's comb through Dave's email box for this week. I'll ask some questions. Dave can answer them. If you have any questions, please reach out to us. Fred@quadcitysafety.com. Reach out on any of our social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, @quadcitysafety on all of them.

Dave:

Oh guys, (563) 445-2170 is our fax number.

Fred:

Yep.

Dave:

Or 2171, I'm sorry. 7-0 is our-

Fred:

Also if you want to send a barbershop quartet in to send your question into the office, we're located in Davenport, Iowa, so you can Google us and find out where we're at. Send the barbershop quartet, and we'll answer your questions from there. But for this week, number one, if I think I am compliant with the OSHA general duty clause standard, what else should I be looking for? Did I fuck that up?

Dave:

Yep.

Fred:

Alright. Question number one, if I think I'm compliant with the OSHA standards-

Dave:

No, no, no. Yeah. Correct. Okay.

Fred:

What else should I be looking for?

Dave:

Try it again. You had it the second time. You were good. Sorry people.

Fred:

Question number one, if I think I am compliant with the OSHA standards, what else should I be looking for?

Dave:

Well quite a bit actually, because the standards are not kind of a catch-all for everything that can happen. So there is this little bugaboo that runs around the job called the General Duty Clause. It doesn't matter whether you're doing safety for compliance or safety for the sake of safety. It basically says that you're kind of a catch-all. You are responsible for offering people a workplace that is free of known hazards. So if you look and you think something can happen, and it happens to them, and you didn't do something to protect them, whether it's covered by a standard or not, meaning there doesn't have to be ... I don't know of a good analogy to put out there, but if you know that something can happen, and you go, "Well, there's nothing really in OSHA that says that if somebody chokes to death on sand, then I won't have to worry about it." And they choke to death on sand. They're going to come in there, and they're going to go, "Well, there's this General Duty Clause that states that you knew there was a chance that they would choke on sand. And they choked on sand, so you're guilty of this."

Fred:

Right.

Dave:

So I think too often people try to sit there and make their safety program centered around, kind of like speed limit signs. I only have to do stuff if there's a speed limit sign or a pedestrian crossing or something. Other than that, I just go a million miles an hour. But if all the sudden there's a baby in the middle of the road, if I run it over it's fine. And that's not the case. You should go, "Well this is a road, and people can cross the road, and at some point in time I might hit something, so maybe I should reduce my speed, or put controls in there to keep babies out of the road."

Fred:

Right. It's not just a thing where you're like, "I get a free pass because it's not written, even though I knew that this could happen."

Dave:

Yeah. All to often people will say, "Well what does the standard say?" And it's kind of like, "We're a little bit past that because it's not just what the standard says. You have an obligation."  We are not dealing in the 1700's and 1800's. We fought war with the fact that we lined people up and got them close enough with the guns that they had that they could hit each other. And they stood there, and they shot at each other. Wars have changed.

Fred:

Right.

Dave:

So has occupational safety and health standards. So what was written and the way that you used to do it is not really ... We can't do it how we've historically done it, is that this is line by line, these are the rules of how we do this, is we should really look at it from an approach of we're smarter than that. We know by evaluating a situation, or going into a workplace, or entering a work site on a daily basis, we should know what the issues are. And we should really, whether there's a standard or not, we should look to the standards to help us figure out how we might handle the hazard.

Fred:

Right.

Dave:

But we shouldn't look at it as kind of a catch-all of "Well hell, since it didn't get caught in that filter, we shouldn't have to worry about it because it didn't mention it." Even though I know that we can hurt somebody with it, who gives a shit because it's not enumerated in 1910.yadayada.1926.yadayada.

Fred:

Yeah.

Dave:

And that's the way a lot of people look at it.

Fred:

Okay. Question number two, is hearing protection required in an arc flash situation?

Dave:

Yes, it is.

Fred:

Okay.

Dave:

So when you look at an arc flash situation, basically we're taking ... I don't remember the exact quantification of it, but you're taking copper, is typically what it is, and you're turning it to a vapor in a nanosecond. So it is expanding at a rate of almost like 30,000, I believe. So there's kind of a sonic boom that comes out of it. So despite the fact that you may have arc flash clothing on, which is meant to keep the heat from pretty much attacking the body. Usually you'll have arc protective clothing, a face shield which keeps ... How do I say it? There is an infrared light that comes out of it, there is kind of a sonic boom, and there's pressure that all come out of it that can affect your hearing. So there is that initial boom. So yes, hearing protection is required in an arc flash situation.

Fred:

But it's more for the noise, isn't it?

Dave:

Correct.

Fred:

It's insanely loud, an arc flash.

Dave:

But again, it is a really quick pop, so it's not something that happens over time. It's almost like a gunshot.

Fred:

So how is that ... Are those ear plugs or whatever arc flash protection that you need for hearing? What's different about it than normal? Is there anything that's different about it? Can you just wear a normal ear plug?

Dave:

If you dig into the standards, it's-

Fred:

My guess is that it would be more than 110 decibels.

Dave:

Well, but the-

Fred:

Or something like that.

Dave:

Standard really points to wearing hearing protection. If you dig deeper into it, there are plugs that ... How to say? ... Are less likely to ignite than others.

Fred:

Okay.

Dave:

So a lot of your traditional hearing protection could theoretically catch on fire.

Fred:

Okay. Melt inside your ear probably?

Dave:

I don't think I've ever read of an incident that it happened, but I know that you would have that potential with certain hearing protection that it could ignite.

Fred:

Okay. Yeah, because anything else that you're wearing that's arc flash clothing or flame resistant clothing, I know-

Dave:

Has the potential to ignite and burn.

Fred:

Right, so that's why I was wondering.

Dave:

Under gear.

Fred:

You probably don't want a burning ear plug inside your ear melting. I feel like that's not the way I want to go out.

Dave:

I can think of at least about seven other ways.

Fred:

Alright. Question number three. I guess this is in regard to FR2, but my vest that I have says treated FR on it. What does that actually mean? Why is it treated FR?

Dave:

Okay. When you look at FR garments, there's different ways that you can have it. Some are inherent, meaning that the fabric itself has an inherent ability to not, or has an inherent ability to be retardant to flame. So some of it could be, natural fibers like wool and cotton have some level of flame resistance to it.  But you can take man-made materials and spray it with stuff like Banox is one of the treatments which, it's a treatment that basically gives things the ability to, if you light them, they may self extinguish, or ... How to say? ... They're less apt to burn. It's not like back in the 1980's, the Underoos craze that went across the world. You're looking at me like I'm crazy. You don't remember Underoos?

Fred:

I was born in '82. I may have missed them.

Dave:

They were made, and they had this ... They were literally like underwear that you were like Superman or whatever.

Fred:

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Dave:

And people would get close to flames, and they would ignite, and they would shrink wrap to these kids.

Fred:

Oh.

Dave:

So it was literally like this epidemic of stuff where you had a lawsuit against people because all the sudden ... Bad example.

Fred:

I do notice though, on a lot of my kids pajamas, and what not, some of them will say not flame resistant.

Dave:

Yeah.

Fred:

So they're like ... The caveat. If it goes down, these pajamas are not protected.

Dave:

Yeah, they're going to shrink wrap to them. They're carrying them with them for a little while until we scrub them out of their skin.

Fred:

Yeah.

Dave:

But no, just when you look at an FR garment, you're going to want something that has an inherent level of resistance, which means that it's either the fiber or it's something that doesn't wash out. So when you look at treated, treated is something that's had a chemical process, or a process done to it, that over time it will lose the ability to be flame retardant.

Fred:

Well, I think there's some debate that's kind of out there in that field that treated versus inherent FR, that there are treated garments out there that will remain FR for the life of the garment. So I think the technology is kind of catching up there a little bit.

Dave:

Yeah, but they're going to be considered inherent. So when you say treated, like I'm trying to think, like Indura Ultrasoft is a natural fiber that is impregnated with maybe like an ammonia molecule. Don't quote me on that.

Fred:

Gotcha.

Dave:

So it's something that's not really treated. So when I say treated, it's something that's sprayed on. It's not impregnated into the ... It's not at a molecular level. It's almost just kind of like a dusted on thing after the fact.

Fred:

Yeah. I just think there are treated fabrics out there that are treated with something that will remain with the garment for the life of the garment. Let's move on here. This is the episode about hearing protection, so how about famous ears? You got any famous ears that come to mine?

Dave:

Elf ears.

Fred:

Elf ears?

Dave:

Yeah. We're getting-

Fred:

Nice and pointy?

Dave:

Yep.

Fred:

Or nice and pokey? How about Spock? Spock has about the most famous ears in the game.

Dave:

Yeah. I never really got into Star Trek.

Fred:

I'm not a Star Trek guy. I'm not a Star Wars guy. If it started with Star, I'm not in.

Dave:

Yeah. I didn't play it.

Fred:

You weren't in that space?

Dave:

No. Well I think I had like a land speeder and some stuff like that because-

Fred:

A what?

Dave:

A land speeder.

Fred:

A what?

Dave:

A land speeder.

Fred:

What's a land speeder or lands beater?

Dave:

Land speeder.

Fred:

Speeder? Alright. What's that?

Dave:

It was like the-

Fred:

Was that from Star Wars or Star Trek?

Dave:

Yeah. Luke kind of floated around in it. It was like one of his little space ships that he would kind of, he would float right over the ground.

Fred:

Fair enough.

Dave:

Like when he cut the Tom-Tom with his light saber and got into it to weather the night. There's all kinds of bullshit, but even though-

Fred:

I don't know.

Dave:

I'm not a Star Wars fan.

Fred:

Yeah. I don't know anything about it. You could tell me anything and I'd be like, "Okay, cool man. Yeah." Dumbo? Dumbo the elephant? He's got them big ears.

Dave:

My ears aren't that big.

Fred:

I didn't call you Dumbo.

Dave:

Oh I thought you called me Dumbo.

Fred:

No. I'm just talking about the literal elephant in the cartoon. Big ears. Famous ears.

Dave:

Maybe I'm a little self conscious about my ears.

Fred:

How about your boy Ross Perot?

Dave:

Dude, voted for the man.

Fred:

I know you did, as you told me. That was before our, was it '92, was Ross Perot '92?

Dave:

Yep.

Fred:

You were voting in '92?

Dave:

Yep.

Fred:

Old Mother Over. I was ten, so-

Dave:

I was so happy to vote for him because he made sense.

Fred:

Dana Carvey did the Ross Perot, right?

Dave:

Yeah, but that's bullshit.

Fred:

What do you mean? He did it. It's not bullshit. He did it.

Dave:

No.

Fred:

You can't handle somebody making fun of Ross Perot? There's a lot to make fun of. He had some big ears.

Dave:

Yeah, he did.

Fred:

So famous ears. Van Gogh.

Dave:

Cut it off.

Fred:

Yeah. So that's pretty famous.

Dave:

I think he has a picture of him, right?

Fred:

Yeah. Van Gogh. Yep. Mickey Mouse probably got the most famous ears in the game.

Dave:

Well, he's made more money off of his ears than anybody else. How about that?

Fred:

His ears, replicas of his ears have been sold more than anyone else's ears. I'd be willing to bet that.

Dave:

I'll bet your right.

Fred:

Yep. And then finally I put down Batman. Batman has the little bat ears on his hood. They're not technically his ears, but he- You call a foul on that one?

Dave:

Yeah. I think that one's, yeah. I'm throwing a flag on that one.

Fred:

Yep.  Well my son has got super into super heroes lately, and he's only 18 months old, so that's a little early in the game.

Dave:

Really? That's way early.

Fred:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's got ... We bought him a Spider-man toy. I'm sure he's picking it up from another kid at daycare or something, but I got him a Spider-man toy. It's a death grip that he's got on that thing. So it goes to daycare with him every day.

Dave:

Does he chew on it, or is it just-

Fred:

No. It's like an action figure for four an up too, so he could probably bite the head off, choke on it, die, and then we'll have a very somber-

Dave:

Yeah, but you can't get it out of his hands, so-

Fred:

No, I can't get it out of his hands. But the funny thing was my wife has her fancy water bottle. I'll show you a video of it later. If there's interest and somebody requests it, I'll post it to the Quad City Safety page or something like that, because he's got her water bottle, the straw in it, and he's holding Spider-man up to the straw. He's making drinking noises like Spider-man's drinking out of the water bottle. So his sister goes, "Can I have a drink?" And he just screams, "No!" And so she keeps asking him for it. Every time he says now, and so mom says, "Layla, I think you need to wait until Spider-man's done." So I said, "Hudson, is Spider-man all done?" And he goes, "All done." And then he hands it over to her, so the little Spider-man action figure he handles. He also walks with him. So he'll put him on his own leg and just start going, "Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk." And Spider-man will be walking along, so-

Dave:

Yeah, that's-

Fred:

I think I got a savant on my hands.

Dave:

That's wow! Either that or he's going to be really-

Fred:

A real psychopath about Spider-man?

Dave:

Yeah. I have the comic book collectors ... I have the first-

Fred:

I've got the first edition, no fingerprints on it. It's got the page protector on it.

Dave:

Yeah.

Fred:

So anyways, as much as we love hanging out with you guys, we got to go get some dinner, grab a cocktail, and then get our feet up for the night. So we really appreciate you guys listening

Dave:

Shit the bed.

Fred:

And giving us a chance to tell our stories, make a little bit of a difference when it comes to raising awareness over these kinds of preventable injuries in regards to hearing or, it really means a lot to us. So we'll be back at it again next week with more safety stories. So in the meantime, spread some awareness yourself. You can leave us some comments, ask some questions. Once again, I'm Fred@quadcitysafety.com.

Dave:

Live long and prosper.

Fred:

You can jump into our social media conversations on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin @quadcitysafety. You can probably search either Dave or I. Get involved. Don't wait until you lose somebody you love to become an advocate for safety. Once again, safety has no quitting time. We will see you the next time. Thanks.

Dave:

Later.

Announcer :

Thanks for listening in to Dave and Bacon's Safety Tales brought to you by Quad City Safety. Send us your questions on Facebook, Linkedin, or Twitter @quadcitysafety #safetytales, or email them to Fred@quadcitysafety.com. He's the guy keeping this mess of a show in line. And if you like the show, please rate and review us on iTunes. It's a kick ass way to show that you care about safety.