Personal Injury Analysis of Land Drilling Rigs with Emphasis on Hand / Finger Injuries & Study on How Effective Implementation of Best Practices Can Prevent Hand / Finger Injuries

The operations in the oil and gas sector are considered as the most risky activities compared to other sectors in the industry. Other than the fire and explosion risks, the other significant risks are injuries to hands/ fingers which these oil & gas industry workers face on a regular basis in their operations. In spite of intensified worker awareness and improved training efforts by employers in the oil and gas industries, the number of hand/ finger injuries consistently increase in the oil and gas industry. The various incident statistics in oil & gas industry shows that, hand/ finger injuries make up around 40 to 50 percent of recordable personal injury incidents in the oil and gas industry. The hand is the most valuable tool of human beings, almost everything in our life can not been done without hands. The main source of injury to the hands include caught between objects, struck by, chemicals, vibration, heat, cuts, bruises, breaks, burns, punctures, amputations, cold and infectious or biological agents. The hands and fingers have more nerve endings per square centimeter that any part of the human body and more pain receptors than any part of our bodies. The main intension of this study is to do an analysis of the personal injuries in the land drilling rigs based on the IADC statistics for the land drilling rigs in the Middle East with emphasis to the hand/ finger injuries which helps to identify the area to be focused to improve. The study also shows how the effective implementation of best practices in drilling rigs will help to prevent the hand/ finger injuries & thus improves the overall HSE performance of the Drilling Contractor.