Better Safe than Sorry
In my own experience, one of the cardinal rules of on-site safety is the basic concept of “Better too much than not enough”.
It’s kind of like the idea of not going out in a thunderstorm. How many people do you know who’ve actually been struck by lightning? Off the top of my head, I can’t name a single one, but you won’t catch me running barefoot in the rain anytime soon. The fact is, it can happen. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens often enough that it’s wisest not to take chances.
When it comes to safety equipment, I feel about the same way. Ninety nine days out of one hundred, you probably won’t have any major equipment malfunctions, you won’t see any significant injuries, but that one day out of one hundred, you want to be prepared. I was visiting a chemical plant where one of the contractors suffered a broken leg after a fall. He had been standing on a window cleaner’s lift, and the lift simply snapped apart and dropped him.
The contractor is fine, now. He was airlifted out before the injury had a chance to get any worse, and his leg healed up nicely, but still, it’s not a pleasant story to tell. The incident never would have happened if he had been strapped in. He had simply grown a little too comfortable on his lift, and didn’t expect it to break.
But it’s not just the people who work two stories up I’m talking about. I won’t get into the details, but you hear stories all the time about drill bits that snap off, welding torches that malfunction, and injuries that could have been prevented “if only”. If only the worker had worn his goggles, if only he hadn’t been wearing a long sleeve shirt, if only he’d been wearing steel toe boots, etcetera.
You ever see that movie “Maximum Overdrive”, where all the power tools, trucks, and kitchen appliances come alive and try to take over the world? Corny as it is, I think that movie is as good a training video as anything. 90% of the time, our machines and tools work like a charm, 10% of the time, you’re going to be glad you were wearing a pair of thick leather gloves.
But get in the habit of treating equipment like it is out to get you!
Tags: Complacency, Maximum Overdrive, safety equipment, steel toe boots
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