The death of a 21-year-old worker at a golf cart manufacturing plant in Georgia that occurred following a mishap involving an earbud has gained the attention of workplace safety advocates, who are warning about the dangers associated with such devices.

The woman died March 9 after becoming trapped in machinery at the Club Car LLC facility in Evans while trying to locate one of her AirPods. She was trying to retrieve it from under a conveyor belt.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration confirmed the agency is investigating the incident.

A Club Car representative didn’t respond to a request for comment. 

Earbud use in the workplace is “certainly something that we’re seeing a lot more,” said Edwin Palmer, an attorney with Pittsburgh-based Burns White LLC, who represents employers in OSHA matters. 

Companies, he said, must ensure workers are not being put into a “potentially dangerous or hazardous situation by wearing headphones, especially around workplaces that have a lot of activity.”

Mr. Palmer urged employers in industries such as manufacturing, transportation and construction to develop policies governing earbud use to mitigate risk.

“You’re not going to have situational awareness when you’ve got music playing into your ears or if you’re talking on the phone with somebody,” said Don Enke, St. Louis-based vice president of risk services, for Safety National Casualty Corp.

Since there is no OSHA standard governing workplace earbud use, any citations for safety violations related to their use would be under the agency’s general duty clause, he said.

While the Georgia case involved someone who was killed while trying to locate a dropped earbud, the issue is especially problematic because headphone use can prevent employees at high-risk work sites from hearing alarms or the approach of dangerous vehicles, experts say.

 “It’s a real challenge for employers because many workers are wearing earbuds,” said Bruce Main, Ann Arbor, Michigan-based owner of Design Safety Engineering Inc., a risk assessment company. “It’s not unusual at all. And the idea that you could drop one is certainly reasonably foreseeable.”

A Risk & Insurance Management Society Inc. spokesman said that in food production and manufacturing it’s “common practice for organizations to have policies in place that prohibit workers … from using earphones and cell phones.”

To ensure workers aren’t wearing wireless earbuds in the workplace, especially in dangerous jobs, employers must start by having written policies in place specifically prohibiting the items, said John Lastella, Hauppauge, New York-based vice president of claims for third-party administrator Broadspire, a subsidiary of Crawford & Co.

Some of his clients, Mr. Lastella said, are updating employee manuals with prohibitions on earbud use and offering courses designed to make workers aware of the inherent dangers of earbud use in the workplace.