The most important reason that we ask you to report all injuries is to allow us to arrange for prompt medical treatment – not to blame someone for causing an accident.
Proper medical care is important to reduce the possibility of a minor injury becoming worse. Most of you probably know someone who developed a serious infection from a minor wound or cut that was ignored until it became swollen, red and painful. Occasionally fatalities result from minor scratches that develop into systemic infections that can be untreatable if appropriate care is not timely. That is why getting injuries treated when they occur is so important.
Beyond the need for immediate medical treatment, there is another equally important reason to report all accidents and injuries. Accidents must be investigated and their causes found to prevent the same injuries from happening again to someone else. You may feel that a little cut on the finger is not worth bothering someone about. Remember, an infection that results in an amputation can start from a small untreated cut. The cable that breaks can start from just a few broken strands. There is no such thing as an unimportant injury or accident.
The immediate result of an accident may be classified as minor, serious, or major, but they are all accidents. However, if the causes are not identified and corrected, the same conditions that caused the accident in the first place are still there – waiting to cause another injury, perhaps with more severe consequences. The fact that the accident was ‘minor’ this time may have been pure luck. Next time the same type of incident occurs, the odds may be different and the result could be a major injury – even a fatality.
There are also accidents occurring every day that do not cause injury.
We call these accidents a “near miss” or near accident. Some people don’t regard a near miss as an accident because there is no injury.
An example of a near miss is a worker tripping over a cable or falling on something left on the floor. Aside from getting their clothes dirty, they sustained no injury, brushed themselves off, and went back to their job.
These events were accidents even though there was no injury. If the cause isn’t corrected, the stage is still set for another accident, perhaps resulting in an injury the second time.
Experience tells us that for every serious accident, there are a greater number of minor accidents and near misses.
Every time that we ignore a minor accident or near miss, we are increasing the odds that a serious accident will occur.
Just the act of reporting a near miss increases safety awareness for you and your coworkers. So you see, there are no unimportant accidents.
Accidents, whether or not they result in injury, are warnings that there are uncontrolled hazards. We want these hazards identified and removed from the work place.
It is critical that all injuries and accidents, including near misses, be reported so that they can be investigated and the causes determined and eliminated.
This will help prevent additional injuries from occurring to our most valuable resource – YOU!