This week, we talk about critical life safety hazards and how to learn better. Information is critical and witness accounts of an incident are vitally important.
Material Links:
https://www.wcpo.com/company-s-safety-failures-are-to-blame-for-teen-dying-in-cement-mixer
https://abcnews.go.com/US/las-vegas-grand-prix-worker-dies/story?id=103439928
This week, we talk about critical life safety hazards and how to learn better. Information is critical and witness accounts of an incident are vitally important.
Material Links:
https://www.wcpo.com/company-s-safety-failures-are-to-blame-for-teen-dying-in-cement-mixer
https://abcnews.go.com/US/las-vegas-grand-prix-worker-dies/story?id=103439928
Welcome to the leading and learning through safety podcast. Your host is Dr. Mark French marks passion is helping organizations motivate their teams. This podcast is focused on bringing up the best in leadership through creating strong values, learning opportunities, teamwork, and safety. Nothing is more important than protecting your people. Safety creates an environment for empathy, innovation, and empowerment. Together, we'll discover meaning and purpose through shaping our safety culture. Thanks for joining us this episode. And now, here is Dr. Mark French.
Mark French:And welcome to this episode of the leading and learning through safety podcast. And what'd you think of the new intro? Essay music new voice little little shorter, little more excitement there. Get us fired up to get the party started. Anyway, thank you for joining me, I am so happy that you have downloaded streaming wherever you may find this podcast I am honored that you have chosen to listen in. And you know what, let's get started. I've already found some really fun and interesting news stories. And I want to share this week with you. The first one is out of Florida. It's a Georgia based company that had some people working in Florida and it's a teen that was killed and that, again 19 years old, fatally injured from something that is easily preventable. And even you think about the idea of how this could happen. There's a lot that could have been different. So what happened was the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is launching the investigation into a concrete manufacturer. So far based on the investigation according to this new story. And of course, I will post the link to the news story. If you follow me on LinkedIn or Facebook, it'll be there along with this podcast. Based on the investigation, two workers climbed inside a cement mixer to chisel off hardened concrete at the job site. One of the workers got out of the mixer, the machine restarted with a 19 year old worker inside ultimately resulting in fatal injuries. OSHA said the company will fully exposed the workers to this deadly hazard by allowing them to get into the mixer without following energy control procedures and not having an attendant ready to retrieve the worker safely. So from when we think about safety, what What were they talking about, they're talking about the control of hazardous energy standard lockout tagout, as is commonly known, and they're talking about confined space entry, and how that the confined space entry is set up in a way that is supposed to protect people that are inside those spaces. So let's talk about both of those. And it's one of the big ones. When we talk about life critical safety. There's a few of them out there that are absolutely life critical confined space, lockout tagout that really come to mind that when not followed creates such a terrible atmosphere for the work. Again, I want to start talking about training. I want to start there. Things are different than what they ever have been in this world as far as diversity of thought and process in education. One, I don't know how the machine started back up, like what protection did they leave the thing running? Was it just like on neutral? Was there a brake engaged? I don't know. I don't know why they were inside this concrete mixer chiseling off concrete and no turning anything off or holding a key in your pocket or something I don't. There's so much here that I think of that could have been done that should have been done. That didn't. And first thing is training. And this is something I've talked about a few times and we've engaged in as part of the podcast. And that's new worker training young workers entering the workforce. With such a diversity of thought and experience that they don't know, what is safe and unsafe. So back in the day when there was only like a few types of work out there that you would follow your your family into some sort of working environment that you would instill happens occasionally we're is passed down to generation, my dad worked there, my granddad worked there, I'm going to work there, those hazards, they would come home and talk about them, you would hear of the things that are going on, and how they could be prevented and what should be happening. And you learn organically, that's not happening. And I'll be perfectly honest, if I was an 18 year old, and someone said, Hey, we do this all the time, you're new here. And because you're the new guy, you get the short stick, you're going into the cement mixer, you're going to chisel off concrete, it's going to be fine. To me, that sounds with it go back to my young age one that sounds like not a very fun job for me, but two, I probably would jump on in and give it a shot because other people are doing it fine. Other I don't have any knowledge or training to tell me otherwise, they've provided me nothing, I've not had any other job potentially that taught me these skills. Because maybe I've done other odd jobs growing up, and then maybe this is my first real job potentially. I don't know any different. And because I don't know any different, I assume that it's safe, because I see other people doing it. First flaw that bothers me so much when all you have to do is teach, take 10 minutes, five minutes, take two minutes, two minutes, and go, you know, before we get in there, buddy, we're going to take the keys, we're going to turn this thing off, we're gonna take the keys out of it, we're going to disconnect the battery, gonna do whatever, and I'm gonna put these in my pocket. And I know that's still not appropriate lockout tagout. But two minutes in a life has saved because we attempted it, it's still not legal, I get that I'm shortcutting even the lockout stand, but I'm just thinking about a simple practice that would teach someone a young person that, hey, you don't want the chance of someone turning this on with us. And so we're gonna, we're gonna do something to assure that they can't turn it on with us in it. Let's remember that that's a great lesson. There wasn't there the hazard assessment of teaching someone to look for a hazard. Let me teach you through my set of eyes what I've seen, in my experience, let me show you how to protect yourself. Not to mention the whole confined space issue where that is training. I mean, there's a lot of training to do that, right. And I've seen this short changed a lot in my career, or companies that want to shortchange it because it's a basic confined space. It's not a super dangerous, not a chemical plant. This is something easy. Take, for instance, hey, there's just cement in there, we're just going to go in there, chisel it off, empty it out, it's going to be fine. We don't need all these OSHA rules telling us how to do it. I sound cynical. And I probably am a little bit here with that, because I have done new hire training for pretty much my entire career. And for a while I thought it was you just run through the routine. But then I realized, at some point, I don't know when it hit me. But it hit me that this may be the first time the theory hearing these messages about safety, that they are hearing these messages about life safety critical procedures. And they may not need them for my facility because of the work we do. But they still need to know about it. And by law, they should know about it. I know that but I'm still believed that I should teach above and beyond just a little bit to make sure that even if they left, maybe they had some additional safety knowledge about always done that. Well. No, no, no, no, of course. I'm learning I'm still learning day, how to do better training. But the lack of it here very, very rough to think about the idea that we would send someone young, someone new, or even someone new to this hazard and not have them educated on the potential for hazard and risk. It feels like you're taking advantage of someone by not teaching them the right way to do it until let them believe that it's safe to let them believe because they're even if they continue in their career, they're going to teach others that it's okay and I wonder how long this has gone on of layer after layer after layer of doing it the wrong way that it finally led to someone being killed. A young person being killed We'll talk about a different story coming up on the second half of the leading and learning through safety podcast.
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Mark French:And welcome back to the second half of the leading and learning through safety podcast. Thanks for joining me, let's move on to a different story. This one here came out of Las Vegas as they're getting ready. They're building the grandstand and they're preparing for our Grand Prix race. And there was a fatality that happened. And what they found out was the first news story and this was kind of what I want to jump in on I've had this complaint before about news and the idea of fatalities of work related fatalities being just routine news, you report it, you move on, there's really no investigation, we're going to wait for OSHA for six months. Maybe there's not as much passion around it at that time. That those types of news stories bother me because it's almost as we expect it because the news likes to report things that are new and flashy and to grab our attention. And it feels like sometimes that I work related fatality is just routine news and not really that exciting. So they don't report it. It's like a blurb, very short, very not detailed, no real investigative teeth, to ask questions or to learn or to find information. And it's just left hanging. And it disappoints me that that can that feeling that it is an acceptable thing that we have where someone can have that happen at a workplace. And it just feels normal. Like it's a no, it's an expectation, kind of like back in the day where they would budget. So many fatalities as part of the work because they knew they were going Hey, fatalities, and that's just part of the job. No, it shouldn't be anymore. And that's what it felt like. But anyway, what happened was, there was a severe laceration on his neck. And he ultimately succumbed. He was helping build the grandstand, the spectator arena. And basically what I had seen in like little pieces of the news is that the ambulance showed up in front of the big Bellagio Hotel in front of the fountains. I mean, this is a popular blaze in Las Vegas with a severe neck laceration. which means My guess is that it was very apparent, and probably very much getting the attention of people everywhere. Without going into a lot of morbid or gross details of what I can imagine the scene look like in a very prominent area in Las Vegas, that someone loses their life from a severe neck laceration in that's what we know. That's everything that was reported. Boom, I don't know how we're going to wait for the OSHA investigation to come out. You know, if this had been any other type of news, and you think about when you watch the news, and whether you love it, don't like it, et cetera, et cetera, and nothing here, plus or minus. But how many times they show up in like interview the neighbors? Or did you know this person? And what did you think of them? And what did you see? Like, can someone ask some questions of maybe some people who maybe saw it that get us some information of what happened to this individual more than just they lost their life building a grandstand, oh, and this Grand Prix, and actually, some of the news stories actually went into like, when is going to be held and how much money they expect to make from it, and how many people are going to come into the city and tourism. They used it as an opportunity to promote the Grand Prix in some of these news stories. I'm not going to post any of those don't I just can't even bear the idea that they would get clicks due to that. So I'm not just can't I can't do that and I don't plan to do that. But what bothers me what really hits home to me, is how this is should not be couldn't it'll be a routine occurrence. And we're treating it just like a blurb on the news. That fundamentally affects me, because at one time I really wanted to go into journalism. I mean, I was doing am radio, I loved reporting the news. I enjoyed there for a while, during the summers, I'd be going around asking like, it was small town, but it was so much fun to meet it go in, I talked to the local sheriff. Hey, what's been happening? And have you seen anything? I'd go talk to the mayor's assistant and ask anything happening out of City Hall? And what can I report, we would ask that we would get to interview these and hear about the news and try to even find out more. If we could, like, hey, there's more information potentially available here. I would do a little bit more, above and beyond to get a story and to report it factually, because I believe that people deserve the facts. And when you're given the facts, you can make your own determination, you can get your own opinion. You can find it on your own, you can live it through your own thoughts and process and make your own decisions about it. But when there's no information when it's just hey, this happened. Sometimes, yeah, there might not be any witnesses. Sometimes there will not be any real data until that thorough investigation is done. And it's deep, deep dove, really looking at it getting that root cause and still, we need that we still need to deep dive. But there is no doubt in my mind that someone saw what happened in that the journalism was just like, boop, Oh, I saw it on a police blotter. So I'm going to just report it as is I'm not going to take it any further. I'm not going to do any digging, I'm not going to do any asking. I'm just gonna let it ride. And to me, that becomes the apathy of why workplace injuries still seem so common and shouldn't be. Because we don't treat them like it's another it's just doing business. And that's just part of doing business is that there's going to be unsafe situations and unsafe things and people are going to get hurt. No, I truly don't believe that. Do I believe that my process is perfect? No. Do I believe I've done everything that I can every day I try to believe that. And I know there's a lot of other safety professionals and managers and leaders and organizations that everyday think about what is the right way to handle it. And when I see these news stories, I usually like to dig in. Like when I find one that's interesting, I'll do some research. I want to know more about the organization. I want to know more about what happened. I want to better understand how we can prevent it. And then it frustrates me when I can't find the information. And there seems to be so little effort to try to get that information bothered bothers me fundamentally is as a person as a safety professional, and as someone who loves good investigation. Anyway, thanks for joining me on this episode of the leading and learning through safety podcast. As always, I'm so happy you're joining me. As we get into the end of summer, I hope that you're still taking some precautions for heat because there are still a number of energy injuries I'm seeing in the news from heat so rest water and shade and until next time we chat stay safe.
Unknown:Thank you for listening to the leading and learning through safety podcast. More content is available online@www.ts da consulting.com. All the opinions expressed on the podcast are solely attributed to the individual and not affiliated with any business entity. This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes. It is not a substitute for proper policy, appropriate training or legal advice. This has been the leading and learning through safety podcast