Chief Safety Engineer at Safety Engineering (SAFTENG) with a specialty in all things Process Safety (e.g., SMS, Hazardous Materials, Emergency Response, Auditing, Training, & Safe Work Practices)
Last week’s “Safety Thought of the Week” was a great quote from a MUST READ book by Tony Muschara. I received several unfavorable messages regarding it premise. Everything we do in OSH and Process Safety is driven by risks, so Tony’s quote was fitting. People make errors and mistakes and violate rules every day. Once we realize this, and we work to REDUCE the opportunities for these errors, mistakes, and violations then we can begin to fundamentally shift safety performance. For those who were offended by my post last week, here is a perfect example of RISK in a very HAZARDOUS activity. Call it an “error” or a “mistake”, it happened after he had completed over 800 successful jumps. Some may even claim jumping out of an air plane without a parachute is just a lack of “common sense”… but how do we explain the 800 previous jumps and thousands of hours of training?
NFPA 70E has a whole appendix on human error, its causes and potential solutions.
Battalion Chief at Fire Department in Los Angeles County
9moWow. That is horrible. Perhaps complacency, since it was so routine for the deceased? This is why I love process and checklists. They can be a pain when you have it memorized already but with stakes this high it’s not like walking back in your house when you forgot your glasses or phone. A very sad and unfortunate preventable death.