Hand Safety and Pinch Points

Hands and fingers are the most frequently injured part of the body on a jobsite. Nearly all of it comes down to two things: a hand in the path of something moving, or the wrong glove for the job.

The line of fire

Before you put a hand somewhere, ask what happens to it if the thing you are holding slips, swings, drops or springs back.

• Pinch points. Anywhere two things come together — a door and a frame, a load and a rack, a trailer and a dock, two lengths of pipe being fitted.
• Never steady a load with your hands. Use a tag line or a push stick. A swinging load that catches a hand against a fixed object does not stop.
• Watch where the piece goes when it breaks free. Cheater bars, seized bolts, prying — the injury usually happens when it *lets go*, not while you are pulling.
• Anticipate the release. Banding under tension, a compressed spring, a lid held by pressure.
• Never reach into a running machine. Not to clear it, not to guide something, not "just quickly". Lock it out.

Gloves are not one thing

• Cut-resistant for handling sheet metal, glass, banding, blades — rated A1 to A9, and higher is not automatically better if it costs you the dexterity to hold the thing safely.
• Chemical-resistant matched to the specific chemical. Nitrile, neoprene, butyl and latex behave very differently, and Section 8 of the SDS names the right one.
• Impact gloves with padded backs where hands work near struck-by hazards.
• Leather for general handling, heat and abrasion.

No gloves near rotating machinery. A glove caught in a drill or a lathe pulls your hand in with it. That is the one case where the PPE is the hazard.

Condition

Torn, worn through, saturated with chemical, or stiff with cured product — replace them. A glove with a hole gives you the confidence of protection and none of it.

If you do get cut

Clean it and cover it, however small. Hand infections escalate fast and cost more days than the original wound.