Safety Walks
How often do you walk around your business and see obvious health and safety issues? Do you do anything about it?
Do you ever walk past a dangerous activity and ignore it ?
What about visits to your customers or suppliers and notice poor health and safety controls or practices what do you do walk past and turn the the other eye?
I can guarantee the answer is almost certainly yes to the above questions, but why do we choose to take the easy option ?
It is a well known,that there are 100’s if not 1000’s of minor and near miss incidents before a fatality or major injury occurs, but unless we report dangerous practices we are not going to rid ourselves of poor health and safety and drive through improvements.
Why Report It ?
Good Health and Safety does not just happen. It takes time. money, effort, encouragement, hard work and commitment Accidents tend to occur because of poor health and safety controls, ignorance, blatant breach of safety rules and regulations, human error or a combination of these with the root causes being identified as poor management controls.
Failure to report an un-safe activity or process is short sighted and condoning bad practices which may lead to more serious consequences.
If it looks dangerous it probably is, so don’t walk by please report it, it might just prevent an accident or incident or worse.
I CHOSE TO LOOK THE OTHER WAY – By Don Merrell:
I could have saved a life that day
But I chose to look the other way.
It wasn’t that I didn’t care;
I had the time, and I was there.
But I didn’t want to seem a fool,
Or argue over a safety rule.
I knew he’d done the job before;
If I spoke up he might get sore.
The chances didn’t seem that bad;
I’d done the same, he knew I had.
So I shook my head and walked by;
He knew the risks as well as I.
He took the chance, I closed an eye;
And with that act, I let him die.
I could have saved a life that day,
But I chose to look the other way.
Now every time I see his wife,
I know I should have saved his life.
That guilt is something I must bear;
But isn’t’ something you need to share.
If you see a risk that others take
That puts their health or life at stake,
The question asked or thing you say;
Could help them live another day.
If you see a risk and walk away,
Then hope you never have to say,
“I could have saved a life that day,
But I chose to look the other way.”