Safety Management - ACCIDENTS
An accident can be defined as "any unplaneed, uncontrolled, unwanted, or undesirable event, or sudden mishap that interrupts an activity or function." Every year, fatalities occur and many more injuries occurred as a direct result of accidents at work. Accidents at workplace do not happen by chance. It is usually a case of negligence on the part of employees or the part of management in not taking taking proactive measures to prevent accidents. The outcomes of accidents are injuries to employees or damage to equipment. Whatever the outcome, there are bound to be negative effects in the form of injuries, damages and the emotional or psychological stress suffered by employees attributed to such happenings. Clearly, there are humanitarian, legal and economic grounds for providing a safe and system at work.
Causes and Effects of Accidents
Effects
The effects of accidents are all too obvius for all to see.
They can be classified under the following:
Injury - including disability, pain and sufferings
Damage - to equipment, facilities, markets, etc
Loss - of lives, earnings, output, time, profits, image, etc
Emotion - following an injury, pain or death etc
An interesting concept is the Heinrich's Pyramid of potential for accidents (derived from data on serious and monitor accidents reported).
Serious injuries 1
Minor injuries 30
Near misses 300
Potential ????
accidents
Causes
Accidents don't happen by chance, they're caused. We ought to take this statement seriously if we are to prevent accidents from happening. What is important is a clear definition of an accident cause. An accident cause is an uncontrolled hazard, without which there could be no accident. Accident causes can be classified under the following:
Plant - such as electrical hazards, facilities etc
Equipment - defective guards, incorrect equipment
Environment - high noise levels, poor...