Find The Hand™ — A Field Guide to Hand Exposure in Industry

FIND

THE

HAND^™

A Field Guide to Hand Exposure in Industry

How to see the conditions that exist before the injury.

PSC Hand Safety India

Engineer the Hand Out of the Hazard™

Not Seeing

Every day, routine industrial tasks are performed and nothing happens.

That does not mean the exposure was absent.

We simply were not looking for it.

Where is
the hand?

This is the only question the book asks you to learn to ask automatically.

NOTHING
HAPPENED
TODAY.

Hands guided. Hands held. Hands aligned. Hands steadied. Hands positioned.

And nothing happened.

But could something happen someday?

If something moved, shifted, slipped,
dropped, closed or struck —
could the hand be injured?

IF YES, THAT'S
A HAND EXPOSURE.

Nothing happened today doesn't mean the exposure wasn't there.

Not Seeing

YOU HAVE SEEN
THIS TASK BEFORE.

Routine work becomes familiar.

We see the machine. We see the load. We see the task being completed.

But sometimes we stop noticing where the hand is.

What is it doing? What is around it? What could change?

That is what this book asks you to start seeing.

FIND THE HAND.

Finding

DON'T START
WITH THE
HAZARD.

START WITH
THE HAND.

Find it.

Understand why it is there.

Then look at what around it could change or reach it.

Find the hand first. Once you know where it is and what it is doing, the rest of the observation follows naturally.

The hand may be exactly where the task requires it to be.

That is why we ask the next question: Could something happen that could injure it?

WHERE IS
THE HAND?

WHAT IS
IT DOING?

COULD SOMETHING
HAPPEN THAT
COULD INJURE IT?

IF YES, YOU'VE FOUND
A HAND EXPOSURE.

Three questions. That is the entire method.

No forms to complete. No probability scores. No severity classifications. No incident history required. No near miss required.

For Find the Hand™, we use a deliberately simple test:

If something could happen that could injure the hand, we have found a hand exposure worth looking at.

The hand usually enters the exposure because the task still needs something from it.

WHY DOES
THE HAND
GO THERE?

TO GUIDE TO HOLD TO STEADY TO ALIGN TO POSITION TO CONNECT TO RETRIEVE TO PUSH OR PULL TO SUPPORT — OR STRIKE

Before asking what could happen to the hand, name what it is doing. Once we understand why it is there, we can begin to see the exposure around it.

FIND THE HAND. We'll help you with this one.

LOOK AT THIS PHOTOGRAPH.

Where is the hand? What is it doing?

FOUND IT?

Now look closer.

The worker is manually lifting and repositioning a fabricated steel section. To do so, the hands must go on and under the workpiece.

This is common in fabrication work. The hand is the lifting interface.

If the section becomes too heavy, slips from the grip, tilts or falls back — the hands and fingers can be trapped and crushed between the workpiece and the adjacent steel sections or support beneath it.

You found the hand. You identified what it was doing. You looked at what could happen around it.

That's the habit.

UNDERSTANDING · TO GUIDE

TO GUIDE

The worker is using his hand to guide a suspended steel frame toward its final position. The crane chain and hook establish that this is a live suspended load.

His hand is in contact with the frame, directly influencing where it lands.

If the frame swings, shifts or settles unexpectedly, the hand on its face can become caught between the moving frame and any fixed structure it comes to rest against.

The same hand that is guiding the load is close to the point where the moving load may meet another object.

Could the frame move? If it did — where would the hand be?

UNDERSTANDING · TO HOLD

TO HOLD

One worker is holding the vertical component with both hands while another worker uses a sledgehammer to drive it down.

The holding worker's hands are close to the point where the sledgehammer will strike. The two operations — holding and striking — are happening in the same small area at the same time.

If the sledgehammer misses or deflects, or if the component shifts under impact, the holding worker's hands are directly in the path of what follows.

What happens to one person's hands may depend on another person's action.

UNDERSTANDING · TO ALIGN &NBSP;TO POSITION

TO ALIGN TO POSITION

The worker is manually positioning the lifting hook onto an ingot. To do this, the hand must enter the working area of the lifting attachment.

While the hand is in that position — between the hook and the ingot — the crane or lifting system could tension, lift or move unexpectedly.

If that happens, the hand or fingers can be caught between the lifting hook and the ingot.

The hand is in the space. The system is live.

Could the hook move? If it did — where would the hand be?

UNDERSTANDING · TO CONNECT

TO CONNECT

Workers are positioning a crane chain among steel sections on the floor. The hands are at the level of the material, working the chain into position.

If one of the sections moves or shifts, a hand between them can be pinched or crushed.

If the chain moves or tightens, a hand caught between the chain and the material can be trapped.

The chain and the material occupy the same space as the hands. Either could move first.

UNDERSTANDING · TO SUPPORT &NBSP;TO STRIKE

TO SUPPORT TO STRIKE

One hand holds the chisel steady. The other hand swings the hammer toward it. Both operations belong to the same worker.

If the hammer misses, deflects, or if the chisel moves — the holding hand is in the strike path.

Could the chisel move? Could the hammer land somewhere other than its intended point? Could the component shift?

The gap between where the hammer is aimed and where the hand is gripping is the entire margin.

FIND THE HAND. Find it, then check. Worker handling round steel piece

DID YOU FIND IT?

A worker is manually handling a large round steel piece — lifting and positioning it by hand.

The hands are directly on the workpiece.

A round piece can rotate in the grip, shift sideways, or slip and drop. If it settles against another surface while a hand is in the way, the fingers can be pinched or crushed.

The task looks like ordinary handling. That is exactly why we want you to notice where the hands are.

The Last 300 mm

THE LAST 300 MM

The major movement may be over.
But the task isn't.

A hand appears for the final:

alignment. positioning. steadying.
connection. adjustment. retrieval.

The equipment may have moved the load metres.
The hand enters for the last few centimetres.

FIND THE HAND THERE.
What is it doing? What around it could still change?

The component is suspended. The hands are on its upper edge, steadying or guiding its final position.

What could move? What could shift or settle? If it did — where would the hands be?

Practising

Three tasks. Find the hand in each one.

FIND THE HAND.

Could something move, swing, shift, rotate, slip, tighten, drop or settle?

If it did — where would the hand be?

Routine tasks can be performed hundreds or thousands of times without an injury.

That is exactly why exposure can become easy to stop seeing.

By now, your eyes may already be going to the hand before we ask.
That is the habit this book is trying to build.

No accident required. No near miss required.

FOUND THEM?

The task didn't change.

The way you looked at it did.

The more you practise, the faster you find the hand.

Reporting

RUN FIND THE HAND™
FOR ONE WEEK.

Tell your team: during normal work, look for where the hands are.

Ask three questions:
Where is the hand?
What is it doing?
Could something happen that could injure it?

If yes — take a photograph.

At the end of the week, spend 15 minutes together.

WHAT DID WE FIND?

No incident required. No near miss required. No risk score required.

FOUND A HAND EXPOSURE?

SCAN. ATTACH A PHOTO. SEND.

QR code — scan to report a hand exposure

sales@pschandsafety.com

What did your team find this week?

Acting

FIND FIRST.

SOLVE SECOND.

Finding an exposure is not the same as solving it.

But you cannot solve what you have not seen.

Once an exposure has been identified, organisations can consider elimination, redesign, mechanisation, guarding, procedural change, tool substitution, or the separation of the hand from the point of work.

The right response depends on the task, the equipment and the environment. Find the Hand™ is the first step in that process — not the last.

DOES THE TASK STILL NEED
THE HAND TO BE THERE?

Sometimes it may.
Sometimes there may be another way.

PSC Hand Safety India works with organisations to review the exposures their teams find and to consider what, if anything, can be done to reduce or remove them.

The conversation begins with observation.

FIND THE HAND.

WHERE IS THE HAND?

WHAT IS IT DOING?

COULD SOMETHING HAPPEN
THAT COULD INJURE IT?

IF YES, YOU'VE FOUND
A HAND EXPOSURE.

FIND THE HAND™

PSC HAND SAFETY INDIA