H A L L O W E E N &

S A F E T YT R A I N I N G

Copyright 2017

Halloween stores carry more than just costumes and decorations in October –

they also carry many things that can be used as safety training supplies. When

I walk into a Halloween shop, I don’t just see decorations, props and

accessories for costumes – I see training aids. There is an abundant selection

of Halloween materials available throughout the month of October and often, in

the few days following Halloween, you can get things greatly discounted. Let

me tell you about just a few of the things you can find that you can use in your

safety training classes.

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It is not too hard to find rubber hands, balls that look like eyeballs, miniature

brains or other fake body parts. Very often these have fake blood on them in

one way or another. I also just saw some really disgusting “make - up” that

looked surprisingly like real deep cuts and amputations. Depending on the

culture at your company, and whether there is a history of these types of

injuries actually occurring, you may not want to use props that are too

gruesome. If you do train emergency responders on emergency situations, you

might want to consider these very realistic props but be careful.

It is also easy to find fake blood in the Halloween stores so if you are doing

some hands on first aid training, or even bloodborne pathogen training, this can

be a great visual aid. You can spill some fake blood and have trainees

demonstrate proper clean up procedures.

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One of my favorite activities to do with miniature fake body parts is to use

them to discuss various affects on the body from hazardous chemicals. For

example, put a collection of miscellaneous fake body parts in a brown bag

and have each team select a body part. Depending on the class topic, you

could also give each team a MSDS and ask them to discover how their

assigned chemical or product would affect their team’s “body part” and then

have each team report the information to the class. Although you could

easily do this by handing out the names of body parts on a piece of paper, it

is more effective for the teams to actually see and touch a miniature version

of the part.

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You could also give each team a list of the parts and then ask them to place

them in order on their tables, from most affected to least affected, by a

particular chemical. For more advanced classes, you could give them one or

all of the miniature parts and ask them to think of chemicals or products that

they work with that would have a negative affect on the part after a particular

length of exposure.

Full size fake rubber hands have a variety of uses but are especially good to

use with hand injury prevention classes. You could put a variety of different

gloves on the hands to demonstrate permeation rates but be careful that the

chemical you choose will not react adversely with the “rubber hand” material.

You could put a glove on a hand and then put a small hole in the glove and

then expose it to a colorful liquid or even shaving cream to show how easily

and how far the material can travel through even a small hole.

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In an ergonomics class, you could give a hand to each team and then have

them move the hand into positions that may cause problems (it is even

better if you can find a rubber hand that has at least a partial wrist

attached). For advanced classes, you can have the teams draw important

nerves and muscles on the hand, such as the carpal tunnel.

For a first aid class, you could “injure” the hands in various ways and then

ask each team to tell you how they would either provide first aid for that

injury and/or how they would record it on an OSHA log.

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There are also usually skeletons of all sizes – from 6” versions used to

decorate trees to full-size models you can pose. These can be

helpful when explaining some topics such as lifting safety. The full

size models are often anatomically correct. Often, there are also

skeletons of just hands available that some people use to decorate.

These can be used for training on the prevention of hand

injuries including carpal tunnel syndrome prevention.

Just as prevalent as skeletons are skulls. You can use skulls in hardhat

exercises (drop various things on the hardhat sitting on top of the skull to

determine if the skull gets injured) or in demonstrations where you

explain the parts of the brain that may be affected by different chemicals.

Depending on the type of skull, you may also be able to show details

related to the optical and hearing systems.

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You may also be able to find full size stuffed dummies, mummies or

scarecrows. These are also great for chemical safety and PPE training. If you

have used activities using the body outline (see the June 21 post on the

SafetyFUNdamentals Facebook page) then you can use the stuffed dummies

for a 3D version of the same activities.

For a little comic relief, you can use many of these items, particularly skulls

and rubber hands, in a sort of “hot potato” game. Have the trainees stand in a

circle and pass the item to someone in the group. When they catch it, they

need to either state a fact or question about the class topic. The person then

tosses it to another person who must do the same.

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The training ideas you can get from visiting a Halloween store are only

limited by your imagination. Who would have guessed that if you get

creative, your Halloween decorations could also help to prevent injuries in

the workplace?

Have a safe day and Happy Halloween!

Copyright 2017

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