Reference no: EM133393393

A maintenance worker with headache, nausea, and blindness from exposure to Methanol

A 25 year old maintenance worker, Brett, at the beginning of his shift had been assigned by his supervisor, Ryan, to clean up old equipment stored at the facility using a chemical product containing Methanol. The worker was new to the job and had never used the product before. This did not concern him, because he was focused on trying to please his supervisor and do a good job. To make matters worse, the label on the product he was using was damaged and had fallen off. Brett had received a 15 minute, WHMIS 2015 elearning course, but no workplace specific training had been provided. The worker did not know what type of PPE to select and did not want to bother his supervisor with this level of detail. He attempted to look up the materials in the SDS binder, but the binder was empty. He thought to himself, "How bad could this be or my supervisor would have mentioned it to me". He proceed to get started on his work assignment.

Later in the day, Ryan checked in on Brett and was really impressed by how great everything looked and what he was able to accomplish in one day. The maintenance worker had commented to his supervisor that he did not feel great and had eye irritation, lightheadedness, and nausea. Ryan figured that it was likely due to the warm room conditions, Brett had gotten a little of the product in his eye, and / or was weak from not eating enough food. No action was taken beyond telling Brett to go home, get cleaned up, drink lots of water and eat some food, and get plenty of rest for the following day. He did follow his supervisor's direction plus had a couple beer with dinner to help him unwind. He was able to get some rest and his symptoms cleared overnight. Brett wrote off the symptoms to over doing it or he was fighting something off.

Since the supervisor was so pleased at how much Brett was able to accomplish the first day he assigned him more of the same type of work when he got back into work. During the second day, Brett was again troubled by eye irritation, but this time accompanied by vertigo, tinnitus, visual blurring, and photophobia. The maintenance worker recognized that the vapours were quite strong in the space he was working, and therefore tried to ventilate the room by placing a small fan near the door, but continued to feel poorly despite a prolonged break. Since he continued to not feel well he decided to take a number of small smoke breaks. During all this, his supervisor Ryan received a complaint about the odors and went to investigate. Upon returning to the work area, he found Brett sitting on the ground unable to see and had vomited. He was holding his stomach due to muscle and abdominal pain.

Using the e-learning content and the SDS for Methanol, answer the following questions in your small group.

D. Physicochemical Properties (Optional)

1. What other products does this material have to be separated from?

2. Who would you call for further information about technical questions?

E. Control Measures

3. What personal protective equipment should have been worn?

4. What handling procedures are recommended by the supplier?

5. Based on what you have learned in this course, what additional control measures would you recommend? (think about the type and location of the controls).

6. Any management system controls you would recommend to decrease the likelihood of this type of scenario happening again in the future?