I actually did save an (identifiable) life a couple of years back- and its such an incredible feeling- it makes all the agro, hassles and frustration worthwhile. How did it come about? Well their was a great deal of work and much combining "common sense" with "safety knowledge" and "human skills"- Risk identification leading to risk assessing, leading in turn to identifying a training need, finding a training specialist, getting much work done to taylor their expertise to our needs and then fighting to justify the proposed course, owning the course, adjusing it even as it was initially delivered and ensuring that all involved (even on the periphery) were made aware of what their efforts had actually achieved for person "x" and their family and friends.

I suppose you could argue there is Direct life saving and Indirect life saving? I lost count of the number of times I've walked onto site and told men to get down from WAH without proper edge or fall protection. How many towers erected badly, MEWPs without up to date test/insp certs. fire safety equipment in poor condition and not working (broken fire alarms, empty extinguishers) etc. etc .etc. While in the fire brigade I saved many lives. Children carried out of burning houses, old people cut free from wrecked vehicles, next door neighbours evacuated from their homes at risk from the fire next door. I have also experienced the other side of the job, those that were not saved and the feeling of despair and wondering if we could have done anything different? Yes it is a good feeling to save a life, and also a good feeling when you see a child's face after you hand over his pet dog that he thought was lost in the fire.

Some very interesting things said already, but I don't know how many events I have prevented, simply because they never occurred. I like to believe because I told them about the dangers they faced and got management to act in a way that reduced the risk. Did I prevent a loss of life or serious injury I don't know but perhaps I got them to think and act properly!

We don't save lives any more than anybody else diligently doing a job. In fact you could argue that the cook that checks food temperature, the engineer who designs equipment and the mechanic who checks the car breaks have a more tangible claim to be life savers. Too many people in this job are worried about what the media thinks rather than quietly getting on with their jobs. I've seen accidents reduce in this job following actions I have taken or issues I have identified. Are the reductions down to me or the people who have adopted them and made them work? As most of us are at work for less than a third of the week it must be the latter.

You are too modest. Your actions definitely, at least assisted, in saving that person's life and you should be congratulated for your efforts. OK you can say you were part of the team that saved the life so don't feel bad about boasting about it.

Exactly my point Clairel, we only set the means of working safely through our judgement and influence to those who actually control the work environment. The role of a HSE inspector has in my view always been one of advising employers and kicking those who wont listen, this is based on an old Railway Inspector who I talked with quite often and he told me some stories believe me.

Guys Thank you, All the post have valid points The idea of the post is to post some uplifting messages and examples of how we have 'possibly' and - quite rightly - with others avoided fatalities please let us not get too much into the symantics of the post Its a good news post in the middle of the current HS bashing so lets not beat ourselves up!

Ian Many years ago I served a prohibition notice on a roofing and cladding contractor who was proposing to use fall arrest instead of edge protection for a roof about 25m above ground. For whatever reason they had clad the building before roofing it. The argument was that drilling through the cladding would damage it. My position was that if the contractor couldn't demonstrate that fall arrest would be equivalent to edge protection, then not good enough. They managed to find a way of putting up edge protection. A little bird subsequently whispered to me that one of the sheeters had fallen down the roof and was caught by the edge protection. Did I save a life? Who knows what the outcome would have been? The research indicates that once you've fallen 7m, the likely outcome is the same how ever far you fall.

Good post. I agree that it is about saving lives. It's what got me into this profession and its the saving lives argument that I use to encourage our health and safety reps. I tell them they are like super-heroes! I work in social care where if we get health and safety wrong, people can die - from falling out of windows without restrictors, drown in baths if unsupervised, scald to death if thermostatic mixer valves are not properly fitted, die of legionnaires disease if buildings are not properly maintained, die of car crashes if challenging behaviour of passengers is not properly managed - to name but a few. So every time I give advice, audit or deliver training, I am doing my bit to help save lives, as is every one else who takes health and safety seriously. This is why I feel the media and Government bashing of health and safety is so disgustingly irresponsible.

I sort of agree and disagree at the same time. Yes the media is usually about those advocating the ridiculous - although usually turn out to be made up, twisted or taken out of context. However, I feel that the bashing drags the whole image of health and safety down - not just the 'ridiculous' Daily wail scenarios. So, I think it is healthy to remind ourselves and other people that we are in the business of saving lives.

here at the shallow end of health and safety the opportunity to save lives is a little limited, but my collegue & I did spot a broken ankle when doing an office assessment and we managed to convince the owner to go to the hospital and get it checked out. The Injured party slipped at home a couple of days earlier and was adamant it was a sprain. So not exactly life saving, but possibly saving a lot of long term problems and pain