Safety Awakening – “Celebrate Near Misses”

November 28, 2014 No Comments

“Celebrate Near Misses”  

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When near misses occur, we usually say – “Wow,  we sure were lucky that no one was hurt or killed!”  Indeed, I’ve seen a number of near misses that could have easily resulted in an employee’s death had the timing of things been slightly different.

Recently, a near miss occurred when a truck driver stopped outside a drive through bay, un-tarped his load, and removed the chains that secured the coil to the trailer.  He then drove into the plant.  When he stopped the 21,500-pound coil that was on the trailer started to roll forward.  It struck a spare tire that was tied down to the trailer bed.  The tire deflected the coil off the right side of the trailer.  Fortunately the coil landed “eye to the sky” on the floor and did not roll or strike anyone.

Had the coil landed either directly on an employee or rolled into an employee, a fatality could have occurred.  As it was, the damage to the 8-inch thick floor was serious (see photo below) and cost hundreds of dollars to repair.

 

An investigation of this near miss resulted in the following changes:

• Drivers were no longer allowed to un-secure their loads before they reach their final unloading destination inside the building
• Employees were reminded that when they see a driver starting to come into the building with an unsecured load, they are to immediately stop the driver and have him tie down his load
• This plant now puts orange cones immediately outside of their garage doors, this keeps trucks outside the building until an employee is there to take the cones away and watch the driver pull in

Celebrate near misses and the fact that no one was hurt “this time”!  Investigate near misses as thoroughly as you would an injury accident, and implement corrective actions so that this type of incident never occurs again.

Awakenings