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In the marine industry it is not uncommon for two fatalities to occur in an enclosed space, the first casualty being overcome by fumes / lack of oxygen etc, followed by the gung-ho "rescuer" being similarly overcome.
Not quite the same as this incident, as these two were some hours apart.
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But even if you see people working on a roof inappropriately how do you report to the HSE. The HSE web site contact details are an address and Fax number (do people still have these ?). So what are you supposed to do write to them!
And because these people are out there, people will still employ them they are cheap.
To be honest I can believe it, last months SHP magazine notes another roof incident.
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It's going to be interesting following this one!
Frank Hallett
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colinreeves wrote:In the marine industry it is not uncommon for two fatalities to occur in an enclosed space, the first casualty being overcome by fumes / lack of oxygen etc, followed by the gung-ho "rescuer" being similarly overcome.
Not quite the same as this incident, as these two were some hours apart. Er, I don't think the example you have given is anywhere near similar to this incident, but thanks for your comments.
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Chris42 wrote:But even if you see people working on a roof inappropriately how do you report to the HSE. The HSE web site contact details are an address and Fax number (do people still have these ?). So what are you supposed to do write to them!
I believe we have a duty to prevent a potential accident. Only yesterday whilst out shopping with the wife, i drove past two young lads working on a mobile tower with no handrails. I stopped and got out to speak to the lads. As i approached them, an older guy who i assumed was their boss said "Can i help you?" I asked him had the lads undertaken tower training. He said "Who are you, the HSE?" I said "No, but i could return with them if you want or you can get your lads down off the tower now and get them to build it to the Instruction Manual which i will provide." Complete change of attitude and the lads stripped it down and built it to the MIM. If he had told me where to go, i would have drove to the nearest HSE office personally.
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Reference FrankCs response to spotting Unsafe Acts & Conditions.
With the scenario given by Frank C, even though he is right in a way about the erection of the Ally Tower etc , remember he has no jurisdiction over the operatives in question and possibility putting himself in possible Danger as the supervisor in question could have turned nasty or gave him verbal.
Being an Advanced Scaffold Inspector, I see a lot of Unsafe Acts & Conditions on a daily basis in regards to Scaffolding on the street but if I were to report these Acts to the HSE it will be a ever ending process.
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AllanFS wrote:Reference FrankCs response to spotting Unsafe Acts & Conditions.
With the scenario given by Frank C, even though he is right in a way about the erection of the Ally Tower etc , remember he has no jurisdiction over the operatives in question Hence my reply of "No, but i could return with them if you want or you can get your lads down off the tower now and get them to build it to the Instruction Manual which i will provide." No jurisdiction, as you say but i believe their change in attitude was probably down to the way i approached them. I felt better offering free advice regarding their safety and also slept soundly knowing they assembled it safely. Legal Duty or Moral Duty? I suppose you choose by stopping or driving past.
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A H&S colleague of previous acquaintance used to recount a story of stopping whilst driving along a busy road in Liverpool, pointing out to a contractor working on a site in full view of the road that the 2 young lads working at height from inside a digger bucket shouldn't be doing so.
I believe the interview in hospital with the police afterwards centred on what was it the foreman actually hit him with that broke his leg.
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ctd167, your colleague did the right thing. It only goes to prove that: -
1) The right thing to do is not always the easiest thing, and sometimes takes guts,
2) We all have the potential to choose our response to any approach from someone, whether we do so or not (as the foreman didn't),
3) Those 2 guys working in the bucket were still going to be at risk whether he said anything or not
4) If you Google "I chose to look the other way", you would feel awful if something happened to them and you hadn't said anything...
5) Whatever the foreman broke his leg with, he was still wrong - arguably doubly so.
Go frankc!
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So should we not be campaigning for an HSE hot line?
A few years back, i saw a worker from a well known coffee chain, on the canopy of the coffee shop front, which was part of a chain hotel.
No edge protection, no harness and lanyard, high winds blowing off the moors. I called the local authority and spoke to an EHO.
No action taken, no call back to me.
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AndrewCl wrote:
Go frankc!
Cheers Andrew. I suppose even if there was a HSE hot line that Ian mentioned, i would still approach the guys first and offer free advice. Their response/attitude would determine my next step.
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There is a HSE "hot line" for raising concerns. Email- concerns@hse.gsi.gov.uk ; or Phone- 0300 0031647 in office hours, 8.30am – 5.00pm, Monday - Friday They are given on their website under: Contact HSE - Health and Safety Concerns - Raising your concern.
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edwardh wrote:There is a HSE "hot line" for raising concerns. Email- concerns@hse.gsi.gov.uk ; or Phone- 0300 0031647 in office hours, 8.30am – 5.00pm, Monday - Friday They are given on their website under: Contact HSE - Health and Safety Concerns - Raising your concern. I think Ian meant a hotline you could phone where the HSE would send someone out immediately instead of taking a note of the incident and then doing nothing.
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AndrewCl wrote:ctd167, your colleague did the right thing. It only goes to prove that: -
1) The right thing to do is not always the easiest thing, and sometimes takes guts,
2) We all have the potential to choose our response to any approach from someone, whether we do so or not (as the foreman didn't),
3) Those 2 guys working in the bucket were still going to be at risk whether he said anything or not
4) If you Google "I chose to look the other way", you would feel awful if something happened to them and you hadn't said anything...
5) Whatever the foreman broke his leg with, he was still wrong - arguably doubly so.
Go frankc! Also Google bystander intervention. It is easy to assume nothing will happen or someone else will deal with it but the consequences can be disastrous. Walking past situations with potential for injury is much like the situations you will see in bystander intervention. It is also possible that optimism bias plays a part.
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The title originally given to this thread is 'It beggars belief!'
Is there actually any evidence that the incidents referred to 'beggar' belief? If there such evidence, what exactly is it?
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Of course it beggars belief the site should have been investigated immediately after the first serious accident. Why are the Police involved perhaps to protect the HSE from angry relatives ?
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BJC
It is curious that you insist the incidents should 'beggar' belief: any professional that claims the status of 'chartership' should be equipped to predict the range of probability of both incidents based on available evidence about falls and fatalities in the construction sector.
The sooner safety professionals focus on available evidence and the levels of probability of risks of incidents of the kind invalidly described as beggaring belief, the sooner their credibility will be worth talking about
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Are you stating there was not an earlier near fatality or perhaps that the matter didn't deserve a full investigation.
Maybe I am being a dullard but what evidence or probabilities are you referring to ?
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No suggestion at all, BJC, about you (or anyone else) being a 'dullard'.
All I am doing is challenging the notion that the accidents which opened this thread 'beggar belief' on the grounds that they were predictable.
One way of predicting the first accident is by constructing a Poisson distribution of probability of the fall in the circumstances based on data of accidents in construction. The second accident could have been predicted using a Binomial distribution (or a Poisson). So, there's no evidence that they 'beggar belief', however regrettable and tragic they were.
An well-conducted investigation can not only provide data relevant to prosecution but also data for use in constructing probability distributions by interested safety professionals of future similar incidents, rather than use hackneyed non-analytical labels such as 'beggar belief'.
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I find it astounding that following the first incident - nothing was (or appears to have been) done to investigate, etc etc, sadly a second family now have the trauma to deal with. FFI is no good to them is it.
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stuie wrote:I find it astounding that following the first incident - nothing was (or appears to have been) done to investigate, etc etc, sadly a second family now have the trauma to deal with. FFI is no good to them is it. Stuie, your comments are exactly why I posted this particular article - thank you for bringing home some sensibility.
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On the basis of the newspaper report cited, there is not adequate evidence to judge what exactly happened after the first incident.
Jumping to hasty conclusions is not a valid substitute for suspending judgments until adequate evidence is available, especially about such a serious incident.
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RayRapp wrote:stuie wrote:I find it astounding that following the first incident - nothing was (or appears to have been) done to investigate, etc etc, sadly a second family now have the trauma to deal with. FFI is no good to them is it. Stuie, your comments are exactly why I posted this particular article - thank you for bringing home some sensibility. And what the vast majority on here thought too, Ray.
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KieranD wrote:On the basis of the newspaper report cited, there is not adequate evidence to judge what exactly happened after the first incident.
Jumping to hasty conclusions is not a valid substitute for suspending judgments until adequate evidence is available, especially about such a serious incident. A guy fell and was killed - what more evidence is needed? The why's and wherefore's can be looked at later - but surely the first thing is to make the area safe and not let the same happen again? Astounded still.
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The first guy fell and died 8 hours later. The second guy fell about six and a half hours after the fist guy. Hence nobody had died from the fall when the second guy fell. There is a little bit of our old friend hindsight bias creeping in to play here.
In all fairness, I do think that they should have closed off the roof, made it safe and done an investigation before sending anyone else up there. But at the time of the second fall, they had only had a serious fall, not a fatality.
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KieranD wrote:No suggestion at all, BJC, about you (or anyone else) being a 'dullard'.
All I am doing is challenging the notion that the accidents which opened this thread 'beggar belief' on the grounds that they were predictable.
One way of predicting the first accident is by constructing a Poisson distribution of probability of the fall in the circumstances based on data of accidents in construction. The second accident could have been predicted using a Binomial distribution (or a Poisson). So, there's no evidence that they 'beggar belief', however regrettable and tragic they were.
An well-conducted investigation can not only provide data relevant to prosecution but also data for use in constructing probability distributions by interested safety professionals of future similar incidents, rather than use hackneyed non-analytical labels such as 'beggar belief'. Your post seems to me to be rather condescending to say the least, especially your use of ultra technical diagnostic methods that seem to say "I am superior to you so there!". The term "beggars belief" is just another way of saying "it seem incredible that this should happen a second time on the same day". No safety professional would proceed on the basis of their first emotional reaction anyway, but that reaction is at least human, unlike your rather snooty post.
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My first thought when I read the newspaper report posted by Ray was the words of Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde's "The importance of being Ernest": "to lose one parent is unfortunate, to lose two smacks of carelessness".
While obviously not have anything like the full details, surely, after someone falls from/through a roof (whether they died immediately or not) it must have indicated to the people on site that going onto the same roof would not be a good idea.
The tile of the original post was "it beggars belief".
That was correct then, it is still correct now, and will remain correct, despite any fancy behavioural assessment mumbo-jumbo
Rodger Ker
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I would like to have seen BigRab's response which has now been removed...not that I can't imagine what it must have contained.
'The first guy fell and died 8 hours later. The second guy fell about six and a half hours after the fist guy. Hence nobody had died from the fall when the second guy fell. There is a little bit of our old friend hindsight bias creeping in to play here.'
Really! Do we now wait until someone dies until we implement corrective actions? I don't like to criticise people or my colleagues on line but there are times when I find kind words hard to come by.
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The responses to this post clearly show those people who deal with safety in the real world and those sitting at a desk shuffling words and paper.
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May I just add a belated comment.
I agree that these events are an absolute tragedy and based on the sparse detail of the media report it does 'beggar belief'. However it seems to me that a fair amount of assumption and speculation is going on. I think the points made by Rob at #26 and KD are very relevant.
With that time frame knowledge if we then ask ourselves some questions. Do we actually know that the circumstances of the second fall match those of the first? Do we know that no one reconsidered working methods? Do we know whether this is a result of foolhardy and/or criminal action?
Because if not then it is entirely possible that we might not have taken the action that some seem to think should have been taken because not to do so 'beggars belief'.
Hindsight is never a good judge of true cause.
As to immediate intervention on any poor practice seen in public. I have always advised that great care needs to be taken when considering such action. It should never be thought of as a duty, moral or otherwise, because one's own safety is paramount.
If you feel confident and experienced at handling such things, are sure the practice is giving rise to immediate danger and are satisfied that your intervention will effect the required change then maybe.............if not then find a way to quickly report it to someone who can follow it up.
p48
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Just an opinion but :
This thread reminds me of working in a safety team out on site fire fighting on a regular occurrence of which I have been doing for the last 2 years.
However when we are all back at our desks / offices then all of a sudden everybody from procurement , crane manager , you name all have to have an opinion when the mug of teas are in their hands and are all of a sudden safety advisors. When they say SSOW I ask them did they know anything about General cleaning v Christmas for example ? its what I call safety phrases that people latch onto but with nothing behind it, the places are full of them. This is not to say by any means that these disciplines should not know safety (just before I get annihilated) because they should.
Come on , as safety professionals we should all be able read the quote " beggars belief " for what it is was meant to mean.
We should all know that a Hilti nail falling 3 levels will by the time it gets to the safety department will be a 25 KG box of Hilti nails which also smashed through concrete slab. But a major injury or worse in this case just shouldn't be what to me seems like a guess work ? may I add a more suitable answer that should go along the lines of
"It may very well beggar believe but let the investigation issue the report first ,,,,, "
Then lets chew the fat as to our interpretations.
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I see you can still generate interesting posts Ray, and some still seem to be confused about our reason for being in H&S. Geoff
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Hi Geoff
Welcome back to the mad world of health and safety. Have you retired yet?
I occasionally post something of interest. The forum is like a box of chocolates...
Ray
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Trying to, just put on the market.
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the nearest HSE office to me is a 60 mile round trip!
Even when I was stood with a number of senior police offices at a site where a worker was blown up [electrical explosion] it took the HSE nearly a half day [yep half a day] to get to the scene which was in the middle of a large town not in the remote highlands and when the enforcer arrived he took me to one side and stated that he had no experience of construction so asked me to run with the site investigation
the point of my comment is that the HSE is not what it was and is much more politically [and monetary] motivated than it was so these days I just walk by poor practice in the street undertaken by those with I have no authority over especially so as many of those employed are at least doing something and are not sitting on their backs watching telly and they need the money - wrong in my eyes but there it is -this is where we have got to
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bob youel wrote:the nearest HSE office to me is a 60 mile round trip!
Pah, only 60 miles? 460 miles for me - overnight ferry or try and get a seat on a plane, then an hours drive each way. Strangely we do not see them that often!
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