Accidents

If someone says “I had an accident”

what assumptions do you make?

What is an accident? In the OSH setting

Unintended and untoward event Unplanned, unexpected event, in a

sequence of events; it results in physical harm, injury or disease to an individual, damage to property, a near miss, a loss, or any combination of these effects

A failure of a person to cope with the true situation presented to him.

Who cares? Victim Governments Researchers Employers Engineers, organisational psychologists,

socioligists, quality controllers, high risk industries

Safety managers and other OSH professionals

Accident Prevention

Hazard Identification Risk Assessment Controls

Tools for Occupational Health and Safety Management

OSH reasons for collecting accident information

Analysis of past accidents, patterns and trends Accident investigation Accident notification requirements (the law) Insurance company requirements – claims

management Allocation of blame

Collecting information = accident investigation

Accident Investigation Purpose

To prevent accidents happening in the future To determine the immediate (proximate) AND the

underlying (distal or root) causes of accidents Methods vary

Systematic look at all contributing factors Outcomes

Focus on the root cause as opposed to the consequences or a scapegoat

Conclusions linked to what actually happened A list of recommendations for change

OSH law

Injury and illness prevention is a legal requirement

Accident reporting to a competent authority is a legal requirement (subject to T&C)

Accident investigation is not a legal requirement

Analysis of organisational data is not a legal requirement

The cost of work-related accidents

5,500 people killed annually in Europe 60 people killed annually in Ireland

500 million working days lost in EU in 1998 as a result of accidents

4.7m accidents resulted in absences of more than three days in EU in 1998

Direct costs of workplace accidents

Employee lost time Medical and hospital costs Compensation and liability claims Legal costs Insurance costs Replacement costs (equipment,

products, personnel)

Indirect costs of workplace accidents

Cost of time lost by other employees who stop work

Cost of time lost by supervisors

Cost of first-aider time Cost of injury to

equipment or spoil to materials

Cost of interference with production

Cost die to ensuing loss of profit

Overhead cost of injured employee

Administrative costs

Accident Statistics

National and international Classification schemes

Harmonisation: ESAW, ILO Local

Recording procedures

A single major accident can dramatically alter accident statistics

Accident Causation Models Heinrich’s domino model (1920s) Bird’s loss control model (1960s) Hale and Hale’s model (1971) Reason’s organisational accidents model

(1990s)

There is NO universally accepted model Causes are generally seen to be at individual

level or organisational level (work activity, working environment and organisational factors)

Accident Causation Accidents usually arise from a particular

combination of circumstances, not from a single cause (but it is often necessary to attribute a principal cause)

Accidents often preceded by near misses No one causitive factor is implicated in all

accidents There are wide variations in the

consequences of similar accidents/incidents

BIRD Accident Triangle (1969)

1

10

30

600

Major injury

Minor injury

Damage only

No injury or damage

Accident Investigation Tools

MES – multilinear events sequencing ECFC – Events and causal factors charting FTA – fault tree analysis MORT – management oversight and risk tree STEP – Sequentially timed events plotting SCAT – Systemic causal analysis technique CMT – causal tree method WAIT – Work Accidents Investigation Technique

…and many more…

Accident Research

Accident causation models been developed since early 20th C

In the past two decades accident research has focused on major accident analysis

Emphasis is shifting towards ordinary and frequent accidents

Occupational Safety and Health in Ireland

Wide variety of work situations Busy OSH is not always a priority

OSH solutions need to be: Easily applicable - not over-technical Practical and user-friendly Clearly defined with minimum ambiguity