"Caution wet floor" sign

Contributed by Robert Kravitz, president of AlturaSolutions 

On Christmas Eve 2021, a writer for the professional cleaning industry fell on a slippery, soiled floor, landing straight on his forehead. The accident resulted in 19 stitches plus three days in the hospital for observation.

That writer was me, Robert Kravitz, president of AlturaSolutions, a communications firm for business influencers.

The incident made me review all that I have learned about slips and falls over the years and how cleaning can help prevent them.

For instance:

· Slips and falls cause approximately one million emergency room visits each year.

· About five percent of all falls result in a fracture.

· Soiled floors play a role in about two million falls each year.

· Slips and falls are the main cause of lost days of work.

· Falls on slippery floors are the main cause of workers’ compensation claim, according to the National Floor Safety Institute (NFSI).

We also should know some basics about how we walk and why we fall:

· When walking, we swing back and forth, transferring our weight from one foot to the other.

· Our center of gravity (COG), the center of the body, is our balance point.

· As our weight is transferred from foot to foot, there is a brief second when we are off balance and vulnerable to a fall. I encountered that brief second.


· If there is an unexpected change in the floor surface, grease, oil, or moisture on the floor, our COG can be negatively impacted.

· We can lose our balance, and, if we cannot quickly right ourselves, we fall.

Prevention

To prevent slip-and-fall accidents, cleaning professionals must develop a slip-and-fall prevention program. This typically includes the following three key components:

Proper Matting. Install high-performance matting to remove, capture, and hold moisture, grease, oil, and debris from shoe bottoms. Fifteen feet of matting is recommended at all entryways for a building.

Proper Footwear. Cleaning workers should not wear dress shoes when working. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health suggests slip-resistant shoes be worn “by employees whose work exposes them to wet or greasy floors, such as housekeepers and custodial workers and food service workers.”


Proper Cleaning. A clean floor is a safe floor. Avoid mop-and-bucket floor cleaning. Use automatic scrubbers instead. Autoscrubbers apply cleaning solution to floors, scrub, and then dry the floor all in one pass. This is the most effective and environmentally responsible way to keep floors clean and safe, helping to prevent slip-and-fall accidents.


Cleaning workers and building managers have the power to make their facilities safe for all building users. That begins with the floors. Let my experience be an example of what can happen when proper floor care is not implemented.

For additional coverage from CleanLink on floor testing to prevent slip and fall accidents, click here.