• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.52-56
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• 2011

Objectives: The occupational accident rate was officially reported to be 0.77 per 100 workers in 2001 and 0.70 in 2009. The stagnant decrease in accident rate raises a question about the effectiveness of prevention activity because there have been active prevention efforts in the past 10 years. It is also necessary to know the exact status of occupational injuries to direct a prevention strategy. Methods: The author re-analyzed occupational injury statistics to find the reason for stagnant decreases in occupational injuries. Compensated occupational injuries cases were used to calculate fatal and non-fatal injury rates. Injuries from commuting accidents and sports activities were excluded as well as occupational diseases. The number of workers was adjusted to that of full time equivalent employees. Results: The fatal injury rate excluding injuries associated with commuting accidents, sports activities, and occupational diseases decreased from 12.59 in 2001 to 8.20 in 2009. In 2007, 67.5% of accidents that involved being caught in objects, which are mostly caused by machines and equipment, occurred in the manufacturing industry; this type of incident has decreased since 2001. The fatal and non-fatal injury rates in the manufacturing industry have continuously decreased while the rates in the service industry have not changed from 2001 to 2009. Non-fatal injuries might not be reported in many cases. The number of insured workers was underestimated as long working hours were not adjusted for in the reporting system. Conclusion: The occupational fatal injury rate has decreased and the non-fatal injury rate might have decreased during the last 10 years, although the statistics show stagnancy. The decrease of the injury rate was countervailed by various factors. Hence, the current accident rate does not reflect the actual situation of accidents in Korea. Korea needs to develop an improved system to more accurately calculate occupational fatal and non-fatal injury rates.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.168-174
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• 2010

South Korea's industrial injuries are decreasing overall in the last 32 years. Nevertheless, the fatal occupational injury rate is still higher than in developed countries. This study was conducted to help prevention strategies of occupational injuries for the Republic of Korea. Fatal occupational injury rates were obtained from "Industrial Accident Analysis"of the Korean Ministry of Labor. Poisson regression was used to assess time trends. Socioeconomic indicators were obtained from the Korea Labor Institute and the Statistics Korea. Fatal occupational injury rates were adjusted by year, and Pearson correlation analysis was used to assess the relationship between the socio-economic indicators and occupational injuries. In 1975, fatal occupational injury rate was 54.8 per 100,000 workers. With somewhat up and down, it was decreased to 21.0 in 2006. An annual rate of change for the years 1975-2006 was - 1.83%, and for the years 2002-2006 was -5.02%. As economic growth rate, paricipation rate for the age less than 25 and hours of work per week or year increased, fatal occupational injury rate also increased. Conversely, as GDP per capita, paricipation rate or employment rate for female, paricipation rate for the age 25 or more, hourly compensation costs for production workers and services output as percent of GDP increased, fatal occupational injury rate decreased. By the development of safety techniques and the adoption of more legislative constraints, developed economy reduce occupational injuries. Conversely, economic growth may raise occupational injuries. Therefore, prevention strategies are needed to manage both of them. We need to make an effort to prevent occupational injuries due to not only sexual differences, but also job differences between male and female. Preventive strategies are needed to consider the characteristics of younger workers. Addition to wage, other appropriate variables for work condition should be considered together. Extending work hours is need to be regulated with systemic methods.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.303-304
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• 2013

Rhabdomyolysis is a rare but potentially life-threatening disorder caused by the release of injured skeletal muscle components into the circulation. The authors report a case of severe head injury, in which a hyperosmolar state and continuous seizure complicated by severe rhabdomyolysis and acute renal failure evolved during the course of treatment resulted in a fatal outcome despite intensive supportive treatment. Our bitter experience suggests that rhabdomyolysis should be born in mind in patients with severe head injury who may develop hyperosmolar state and continuous seizure.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.88-91
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• 2014

Pyrethroids have been widely using insecticides. Although generally regarded as less toxic to mammals including humans, we report one fatal case of pyrethroid poisoning with severe brain injury.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.184-191
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• 2018

Background: Due to an increasing number of workers aged 50 years and above, the number of those employed is also on the rise, and those workers aged 50 and over has exceeded 50% of the total fatal occupational injuries. Therefore, it is necessary to implement the selection and concentration by identifying the characteristics of high-risk groups necessary for an effective prevention against and reduction of fatal occupational injuries. Methods: This study analyzed the characteristics of high-risk groups and the occupational injury fatality rate per 10,000 workers among the workers aged 50 and over through a multi-dimensional analysis by sex, employment status of workers, industry and occupation by targeting 4,079 persons who died in fatal occupational injuries from January 2007 to December 12. Results: The share of the workers aged 50 years and above is increasing every year in the total fatal occupational injuries occurrence, and the high-risk groups include 'male workers' by sex, 'daily workers' by worker's status, 'craft and related-trades workers' by occupation, and 'mining' by industry. Conclusion: The most frequent causal objects of fatal occupational injuries of the workers aged 50 years and above are found out to be 'installment and dismantlement of temporary equipment and material on work platforms including scaffold' in the construction industry and 'mobile crane, conveyor belt and fork lifts' in the manufacturing industry.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.99-107
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• 2021

This study analyzes the differences in definitions and concepts of terms used in the statistical indicators of fatal occupational injuries per 100,000 workers among countries included in the ILOSTAT data explorer. In addition, improvement measures focusing on the limitations in international comparison are proposed. Five countries-the Republic of Korea, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, United States-- were comparatively analyzed. These countries were selected according to the significance of differences in their definitions of workplace injuries, workers, and compensation insurance, and their reporting systems. Considering these differences before directly comparing statistical indicators of fatal occupational injuries per 100,000 workers among countries is necessary because the range of comparison groups and the definition of fatal occupational injury are different for each country. While one can also compare trends by country, it is necessary to investigate beforehand whether the criteria and methods for processing statistics have changed. Misinterpretation can be minimized by properly understanding the process and limitations of fatal occupational statistical indicators that may differ from country to country.

• International Journal of Safety
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.47-52
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• 2004

Current OSH system was analyzed in this paper to explain why high fatal incidents and disasters are continuously repeated for recent years in Korea. It was found that we have Dichotomous Perceptional Misconception of prevention before accident and compensation after accident and there is a significant lack of proper feed­back reward system for OSH performance. It was assumed that no reduction of accident rate and fatality rate have not been achieved recently despite of a great effort and increased resource allocations. Some statistics for proving weak punishment were analyzed. In the current system, the will of administrative agency would have been very limited particularly in the legal aspects. The Industrial Safety and Health Act is not suitable to after-injury punishment for employer and/or corporate since it is based on a framework for enforcement of prevention. Based on these analyses, it was concluded that there was a need to consider a special law for Corporate Accountability for Fatal Accidents. Because it is necessary to consider seriously for introduction of a new legal system for after injury punishment to repair the current system where it was found lack of proper feedback system. Also, there was no proper sanction measures for corporate with the current OSH legal system, and the most urgent problem in OSH area is the high fatality rate. it is necessary to consider seriously for introduction of a new legal system for after injury punishment. Also, there is no proper sanction measures for corporate with the current OSH legal system, and the most urgent problem in OSH area is the high fatality rate.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.1160-1166
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• 1995

From 1980 through 1993, sixty one patients having traumatic flail chest were analysised retrospectively at the Department of Thoracic and Cardivascular Surgery, Chonbuk National University Hospital. There were 47 men and 14 women, mean age, 49.3 years, age range 4 to 82 years. The most common mode of trauma was automobile accident, common combined other organ injuries were skeletal injury [ 36 patients and neurologic injury [ 20 patients . In the mode of treatment, ventilator therapy was done in 34 cases and operative stabilization was done in 18 cases [ Kirschner or steel wire: 9 cases, Judet`s strut: 9 cases . Sixteen patients died [26 % . The main factors associated with fatal outcome were shock [ p < 0.002 , head injury [ p < 0.005 , and more than 50 years of age [ p < 0.05 . In fatal cases, 14 patients died during in ventilator therapy [ 14/34, 41 % and 2 patients died following operative stabilization of chest wall [ 2/18, 11 % .The overall cause of death was septicemia, ARDS, ARF, hypovolemic shock and hypoxic brain damage.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2017

Ballistic impact on a soldier wearing a helmet can induce fatal injury, even if the helmet is not penetrated. Although studies on this type of injury have been performed, most of them have used an analytical model focused on head injury only. The injury of the neck muscles and cervical vertebrae by non-penetrating ballistic impact affects the survivability of soldiers, despite not inflicting fatal injury to the human body. Therefore, an analytical model of the head and neck muscles are necessary. In this study, an analysis of human body injury using the previously developed head model, as well as a cervical model with muscles, was performed. For the quantitative prediction of injury, the stress, strain, and HIC were compared. The results from the model including the cervical system indicated a lower extent of injury than the results from the model excluding them. The results of head injury were compared with other references for reliability.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.75-82
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• 2016

According to the statistics, occupational fatal injuries by the fork lifts were about 30 per year in whole industrial. Fork lifts are widely used in various parts of industries to improve the efficiency of the work. In this study, the current regulations to be adequate in industrial site have to be renew in order to prevent the fatal injuries by the fork lifts. Fatal injury analysis were conducted with several accident cases by the fork lifts. For each accident, the causes of the injuries were examined and proper safety measures were proposed. In this study, the fork lift showed a high fatality rate in industrial accidents and no detailed cause analysis of fatal accidents was conducted in terms of unsafe acts or conditions. First, fork lifts were the highest of the machines caused the accidents. In order to prevent fatal injuries by the fork lifts, the tarket was manufacturing industry. Second, the order of the cause of cognitive engineering agenda in the manufacture industrial was visibility, responsibility and affordance, and revision of acts was proposed. Third, there was not a lots of different points of human error between occurrence types and business sizes. Forth, number of fatalities by the attacker was more than by the inducer.