In the videos, Louise Taggart talks about her electrician brother, Michael Adamson, who was electrocuted at work in 2005 and she outlines what employers can do to improve health and safety at work.
Louise has made these short videos publicly available and has asked that, should you wish to use them in your own workplace or training provision, you make a donation to Scottish Hazards to aid their preventative work. Donate here
Louise’s younger brother, Michael, died after cutting through a cable marked “Not In Use”, which was in fact wired into a distribution board and was not safely isolated. It took more than three years for the case against the company that employed him to reach court.
Following the trial, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said in a statement that his death could have been prevented if his employer had “ensured that safe working practices were being carried out in accordance with the company’s own written procedures”.
Speaking to SHP Online, Louise said: “I want his story to reinforce why safe systems of work need to be in place, not only on paper, but also in practice.”
The method statement of her brother’s employer stated that “before working on electrical equipment, it should be isolated and secured by means of a padlock”.
However, the devices for lock-off/tag out were not provided by his employer and the practice on site was to use insulating tape.
“The HSE’s specialist electrical inspector wanted to get hold of examples of the lock-off devices to show as evidence at the trial,” said Louise.
“He was asking for them in Edinburgh, in major industry wholesalers, and at every turn he was being told ‘Nah mate, sorry we don’t stock them. No demand from industry for them’.
“This fundamental safety procedure, each spark had been taught during his or her apprenticeship for around 20 years prior to Michael’s death, was not being implemented by the electrical contracting industry.”
Louise hopes the videos will prompt leaders to reflect on their effectiveness, reinvigorate for line managers and supervisors the role they must play in enabling and driving safe behavioursandl give people the courage to speak up when they see something unsafe.
She has also released the videos to help raise money for the health and safety charity Scottish Hazards and to mark International Workers’ Memorial Day.
“I’m on a mission to ensure that lessons are learned from my wee brother’s death so that others are able to return home safe and sound to their loved ones at the end of each and every working day or night.” Louise Taggart
To find out more about Michael’s Story visit www.michaels-story.net
To donate to Scottish Hazards, click here.
Louise will share Michael’s story in more depth at Safety & Health Expo, on the afternoon of Thursday 21st June at ExCel, London.
She will go through the catalogue of errors in health and safety management – any one of which would have been serious enough on its own – which accumulated to prove fatal.
Michael’s story can make the world a safer and healthier place to work and live. Come and meet Louise for ideas to help bring about positive change in your workplace.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Stating the bleeding obvious that nevertheless, remains a question of the expedience in just too many workplaces is clearly necessary. A brilliant and poignant reminder that “all of us” are not only have a primary “duty of care for ourselves” but, maybe even a greater one to others. Having an underpinning mindset and/or ethos of “DO NO HARM” is NO ACCIDENT ‘when’ not ‘if’ working toward making sure everyone, including yourself, “goes home safe” at the end of the the working day. Especially “when” we do actually know that treating everything as just a “just-job”, a matter of tick-boxing will not be enough.
Back on my high horse, no one would acknowledge apathy in any chain of causation but, in 8 out of 10 cat cases, tiredness, lack of alertness, fatigue and loss of alertness, concentration or cognitive overload manifesting in sub-optimal inadequate decision making or just plain poor performance results in, so called, accidents where stress / fatigue does end in KSI.
Such a strong message. Thank you for these videos. I will share the link at our next IOSH Switzerland meeting, Louise.