Incident Investigation & Reporting.

Reporting of incidents resulting in injuries is required by law. Many companies do not investigate anything or merely report the basics of what happened. See: http://safetyrich.blogspot.com/2011/07/view-from-inside-part-2-of-2.html for a brief discussion what most companies do not do, even when serious injuries or fatalities occur.

Incident reporting is far too complex of a subject to cover in detail in this forum.  Make sure that a thorough, detailed  investigation is completed to the point the root cause of the incident is identified and prevention is addressed.

It is important to pause here to note the difference between accidents and incidents. Accidents are completely unforeseen and almost impossible to prevent. A true industrial accident is rare, because seldom does a completely unforeseeable event occur. With sufficient planning, risk management and attention to safety detail, all we have left are incidents.

We have mentioned before the story of Robert. Robert was a maintenance worker at a United States Steel in Pennsylvania who completed a 35-year career to retire without a single, lost-time incident. He did not even have an injury requiring minor first-aid in an industry that has serious hazards.

When investigating an incident, gather details from any injured worker and witnesses. The report should include a timeline that includes the events leading up to and following the incident.

Your report should include an in-depth analysis of the causes of the accident. Causes include:

• Primary cause (e.g., a spill on the floor that caused a slip and fall)

• Secondary causes (e.g., employee not wearing appropriate work shoes or carrying a stack of material that blocked vision)

• Other contributing factors (e.g., burned out light bulb in the area).

You are seeking a Root Cause for the incident. In the above example, the Root Cause might be a spill that was not reported.  A spill caused by a sudden event, such as a burst pipe, would be the cause of a true accident (completely unforeseen), but only for a few minutes until the spill was observed. Unless, of course, the burst pipe was the result of poor maintenance, in which case it was fully preventable.

Finally, focus on the prevention of future occurrences of the incident: How will the company prevent this from happening again? Practice proper risk evaluation methods, conduct job hazard analyses and recommend corrective action: engineering, training, work process design, signs, PPE.

If an incident or near miss is not properly investigated, it is likely to be repeated which could result in serious OSHA violations, injuries or a fatality.

See our Web site: SafetyRich