Each day, 15 Americans die from work-related injuries. Thus, there were 3.7 fatal work injuries per 100,000 full-time workers. Construction had the most fatalities with 1,069 deaths, followed by transportation and warehousing with 1,053. Throughout my career, I have worked on some amazing projects, but I have never worked on a project so important that I would give my life to see it through. It is my belief that every father, mother, husband, wife, sister, and brother of those 1053 construction workers who died at work felt the same way. When there are great safety regulations and procedures in a country such as ours, why are so many people dying at work? There is a statistical reason for this.
Over the years, we have made a number of mistakes when trying to prevent work fatalities, as shown by the Heinrich Pyramid. Statistics prove that 30,000 unsafe acts will result in 3,000 near misses, 300 accidents with minor injuries, 30 accidents with major injuries, and 1 fatality resulting from 30,000 unsafe acts. Accidents have always been tracked, investigated, and followed up on, and we've always tried to prevent them in the future. Our ability to prevent, address, track, and investigate unsafe acts and find ways to stop them will help us prevent injuries and fatalities. Stopping the deaths would be possible if we could prevent, address, track, and investigate unsafe acts.
Almost all unsafe acts are done for one of four reasons, or a combination of the four. They are convenience, overconfidence, ignorance and no- time. Here are some examples: An electrician has a fan in the ceiling that is not working. He climbs a ladder and looks at the control wiring box, there is a 277V feed that looks like it might not be terminated well. It is a simple matter of checking the wire nut and he is right there. He loosens the wire nut and receives a shock and falls off the ladder and breaks his wrist and loses 40% of the mobility of his wrist for the rest of his life. It was more convenient to just check the termination than climb down and de-energize the circuit. An experienced 5K forklift operator needs to move his fork lift back 4 feet to reposition it. His spotter is not around. He checks behind him and determines it is clear and he has done this many times before and knows he can do it without a spotter. He backs the equipment and hits his spotter who had just returned and saw something on the ground behind the lift and was checking it out. The spotter lost his leg above the knee. The operator was overconfident in his abilities to back the equipment safely even though he knew he had blind spots. An apprentice set ups a three legged ladder and has not been showed that a three legged ladder is completely dependent on the secure locking of the leg bar for support. If it is even slightly not locked in place, any shifting of weight from left to right on the ladder can cause the lock bar to bend and the ladder to collapse. He sets it up, does not double check the locking and proceeds up the ladder, and the ladder the collapses and he falls. Fortunately he was not hurt this time. He had not been trained properly and his lack of information ( ignorance) led to a near miss. An electrical inspector arrives on the project and the superintendent sees a light out in an office. He tells a journeyman to find out what is wrong with that light and he will start the inspection on the other side of the area. The journeyman knows what may be wrong because they have found some other make mistakes in other rooms with the lighting control. He grabs a ladder and climbs above the grid ceiling and opens the box where the make up is located and see the low volt dimming leads gray is tied into the neutral of the 277 feed. He takes the wire nut off and the wires pop open and touch his thumb. He is contact with the grid ceiling and becomes hung up immediately. He has the presence of mind to kick himself off the ladder to get free and falls onto a desk below him, severely injuring his back. He spends months in the hospital recovering from his injuries. His perception that he did not have time to do it right and turn of the circuit led to him taking much more time.
We all need to work together to reduce unsafe acts so that we can prevent fatalities. That is exactly what our safety initiatives and goals are aimed at. Make safety a core value, not a changing priority that changes depending on the situation, and stop unsafe acts.
Every day, every minute, let's change our focus and awareness.
Remember…… No more COIN, ( Convenience, Overconfidence, Ignorance, No Time) , Only BANK. ( Best practices, Always aware, No short cuts and Knowledge)
Thank you
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