Small incidents lend clues to fatality risks

A worker at a construction site is walking when a large steel I-beam falls next to him, grazing his arm. He might be a little shaken up and need a bandage, but on the surface the injury might not appear to warrant reporting or paperwork.

However, these are exactly the types of minor incidents workplace safety professionals should be paying additional attention to, experts say.

“There is very little injury but the problem is it could have killed him,” said Taylor Abel, Tampa, Florida-based director of safety for United Rentals Inc., a Stamford, Connecticut-based industrial equipment rental company. “If we treat that as a first-aid (incident) we are not going to be able to prevent that in the future, and when it happens again it could easily kill or seriously maim the individual.”

Mr. Abel, among the employer participants of a recent study on fatal and near-fatal workplace injuries, was explaining by example a reality that safety professionals can often overlook: Don’t ignore the small stuff.

With workplace fatalities on the rise, new safety research is outlining the ways that a deep dive into could-happens, near misses and smaller, less serious incidents could help prevent on-the-job deaths.

Referring to a pyramid to illustrate workplace incidents, with the relatively small number of fatalities at the top and droves of non-injury accidents at the bottom, an increased focus on those less serious incidents could help identify hazards that could be mitigated or eliminated, reducing the potential for more

serious incidents that could result in fatalities, according to Joy Inouye, a researcher with the Itasca, Illinois-based National Safety Council’s Campbell Institute and author of the white paper “Serious Injury and Fatality Prevention: Perspectives and Practice,” released Oct. 23.

Why focus on fatalities when such incidences remain in the minority when it comes to workplace accidents overall? Because the more serious tragedies have peaked in recent years, according to data compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

According to the most recent figures, there were three recordable nonfatal incidents per 200,000 working hours in 2016 — a drop from a high of 8.5 recordable incidents in 1992 and a figure in line with the downward trend of fewer workplace mishaps resulting in injuries. Yet that same data revealed that 5,190 workers died on the job in 2016 — an eight-year high. The BLS is set to release its newest batch of data for 2017 in December.

“(Employers) are doing a good job at preventing things happening at the lower end of the triangle, but unfortunately there are years when they have fatalities,” said Ms. Inouye, about the shifting focus for safety professionals who want to reduce deadlier incidents.

“We are doing so well at preventing the near misses, but what do we need to do to prevent the fatalities?” said Ms. Inouye.

The key is to look at all incidents — namely, precursors to accidents, recordable injuries, lost-time injuries and fatalities — and seek out those with serious injury and fatalities potential because upon close inspection the potential is often there, she said.

“We’re looking at that slice of the pyramid, incidents with (serious injury and fatal) potential,” she said, referring to a new illustration where potential is everywhere.

Philadelphia-based utilities firm PICO Energy Co., which also participated in Ms. Inouye’s study, began collecting minor-incident reports four years ago as a way to halt the more serious incidents, according to Ben Kao, PICO Energy’s manager of safety and human performance.

“The general direction (for workers) is just tell us your stories and let us figure out what it actually is,” Mr. Kao said.

“It can be as simple as ‘there’s water on the floor’ or as big as ‘this thing almost fell on my head.’ We are trying to mature to a place where those types of incidents where no one was injured gets treated the same way as if someone was seriously injured so we can put any corrective action in place,” he said.

The change has been an “ongoing process” and getting employees on board is easier when supervisors explain why the company is focusing on the smaller incidents and near-misses, and how a minor incident can turn major, Mr. Kao said.

Safety experts recall the 2005 oil refinery explosion in Texas City, Texas, known in government and safety circles as the “BP America refinery explosion,” in which a series of near misses that were not tracked helped contribute to the accident that killed 15 workers and injured 180 others, according to Mr. Abel.

“What (investigators) found was that the Texas City refinery was so focused on recordable (injury) rates that they lost sight and focus on potentially serious incidents,” said Mr. Abel. “That’s when the light bulb went off. We have to look at potential rather than actual outcomes for minor incidents.”