Tim Marsh on a golden rule of behavioural safety.
When we talk about basic behavioural safety on a training course, we always make the blunt point that “gravity is a right royal bastard”. It’s a risk factor that you simply cannot design out. “Well, unless you live in a bungalow and never stand-up or walk about” we often joke.
I’d like to share a close to unbelievable recent experience that happened to the family of John Dillon – Anker and Marsh’s longest serving consultant. A dramatic event that proves that even staying seated in a bungalow won’t always keep you safe from gravity. This preluded by a basic training exercise and a fatal case study.
A few years ago, a colleague was asked to consider a fatal fall down stairs in a nightclub. Did they think foul play might have been involved? The patron was drunk and rowdy … there was no cctv and there was a concern that an irritated doorman had perhaps given them a nudge. Well possibly … but it transpired that the stairs were old, steep, slippery, with steps of differing depths that prompted ‘air steps’ in even the sober and the handrail thin and welded to the wall so mostly decorative. A genuine fall of course a very real possibility.
Indeed, it was observed, lots of falls would be expected and when the accident book was consulted it was found that lots of falls had of course occurred and, two years previously there had been another fatal fall. (But there were lots of witnesses so this one described as just an “accident, accident” and not suspicious!)
An exercise we use to illustrate the obvious rapid risk accumulation described above is based on the musings of writer Bill Bryson. In one of his books, he looks through national accident statistics and ponders with amusement on what might have occurred to people maimed by such as ‘grooming devices’. It transpires that the incidents of burning yourself with hot tongs and stabbing yourself with scissors are broadly on a par with those hurt by chainsaws and the like. What’s interesting about the ‘obviously dangerous’ interactions with chain saws and axes is it reflects the truism that when it’s dangerous we tend to plan what we’re doing, be focused and alert whilst following the SOPs – and stopping to do our dynamic risk assessments when the situation changes. In short, we’re safety conscious when it’s clearly dangerous.
The statistics show clearly that it’s that everyday low risk stuff when were distracted, tired or rushing that fills the hospitals. Especially when gravity is involved. The hospitals are full of people who were doing frequent and everyday ‘safe’ things. Top of the list by a country mile is using the stairs, standing on chairs to change a lightbulb, failing to sit down squarely or simply slipping.
Workplace safety.
Did you know that, reflecting the above, more people have been killed in falls offshore than in all the process safety incident combined – Piper Alpha included? It’s simple maths: – If the likelihood of falling down those steep metal, oft wet stairs, is 100,000 to 1 if you’re not holding the handrail – but the stairs are used a million times a year – you’ll have ten accidents annually, give or take if no one holds the handrail. One a year, give or take, if 90% do and one every ten years, give or take, if 99% do. Only at this point does ‘zero harm’ become viable. (Leaving aside wellbeing and mental health concerns re ‘define harm’!)
A follow up exercise it to ask delegates to consider any famous people they can think of who’ve had an accident. They nearly all involve gravity. People quote everything from Eric Clapton’s son falling through a window, Christopher Reeve falling off a horse, Ozzie Osboune falling off a motorbike and Rod Hull falling off a roof. (Once a delegate bucked the trend and pointed at Richard Pryer who’d set fire to himself in the middle of a crack cocaine binge. We suggested counting Pryor in anyway as haven fallen off the wagon … sorry!).
Last weekend, a 1.5 K lump of ‘space junk’ crashed through John’s bungalow (!) roof in Omagh, Northern Ireland and only missed his lovely wife Kate by three feet. A yard to the left and she’d have been only the second person ever to have been killed by falling space junk. John and his young children weren’t all that far away either of course.
Here’s a prediction based on the ever-increasing proliferation of ageing and disintegrating satellites, and the laws of probability and gravity … she would only have been the second ever to be killed but wouldn’t have been the last. To misquote the famous film do look up!
To reiterate – Golden Rule One of Basic Behavioural Safety:
Never forget that gravity is a right bastard!
Always hold the handrail, access height safely, step down squarely and wear a hard hat whenever it might be needed. And that later point might be more often than you’d think!
I bet there would be just as many accidents with zero gravity if you think about it!!