Don’t Get Trigger Happy with Nail Guns

Across North America each year an estimated 41,000 people go to hospital emergency departments for treatment of nail gun injuries.

OSHA says operators, co-workers and any other people in the vicinity are at risk for nail gun injury. The eyes, hands and fingers are particularly vulnerable to injury. An injury can easily occur when a worker is keeping the trigger depressed when moving around. If the gun tip hits a surface, a nail can be fired, sometimes with deadly consequences.

Nails may also:

• splinter or blow out fragments from the material being attached
• puncture the back of the material
• fire straight through the material and strike workers on the other side or,
• pose contact hazards such as electrical shock, if electric wires are struck by nails.

It’s estimated that using nail guns with sequential trip triggers could prevent up to 70 percent of nail gun injuries. Sequential trip triggers require the nose of the gun to be pressed against the nailing surface before the trigger is pulled. This two-step sequence makes accidental firing of a nail gun far less likely.