Safety is very important in every aspect of life. Nobody wants to get hurt and end up in the emergency room or the morgue. We have safety belts in our cars. We have safety glasses to protect our eyes, ear plugs to protect our eyes, ear plugs to protect our hearing, boots for our feet, gloves for our hands and respirators for our lungs. Weight lifters have belts to help prevent hernias, hemorrhoids or even worse, a rear seal blow out. Firefighters have safety protection as well as our men in blue—a side-arm helps, as well. Everywhere you look there is some form of protection from personal injury. We have learned this the hard way. People got hurt and killed both working and playing. Hurt during sporting events and even leisure such as skiing.
Safety policies and equipment has continued to improve over the last few decades. Many years ago it wasn’t an issue. People got hurt. Some were killed. Others died slow and painful due to the long term effects of exposure to air born particles. This was the case with many of my older relatives that worked in the U.S. steel mills. I can remember as a teenager, working in a fabrication shop wearing tennis shoes without gloves, safety glasses or hearing protection. I didn’t know any better because everyone was dressed the same and no one had any protection. It was a normal work environment. I remember delivering some material to the steel mills. Once inside you could not see 20 feet because of all the particles and coal dust in the air. There were hundreds of men breathing that air, if that’s what you want to call it. I’m sure there was enough oxygen but there was plenty of other stuff that should not be inside your lungs. Let’s not even talk about the iron workers in the ’30s and ’40s connecting steel on high rise buildings.