Hi Rachel,

I wouldn't personally use such images, for a number of reasons;

1) As you have already mentioned somebody paid too high a price for that photo to be taken.
2) It's impact may detract from your message. People generally don't like thinking about death and if they try and put that picture out of their mind the associated message will go with it.
3) Unscrupulous people will claim that seeing the image has truamatised them and caused them to suffer.
4) somebody may genuinely be traumatised!

If the need to show gruesome images is required, then I would think that the core of the message is not getting through. As you say you do not agree with it, so why do it?
As far as the legal side of this goes, I would hesitate to say there was any copyright infringements, it is just ethically and morally deficient.
The other issue is, has the company you work for approved such presentations? You may find that you get yourself in some pretty deep, pretty smelly, substance if you do go ahead.

I agree with you John but the one of the Chinese soldier holding a target over his head is funny.

The use of rather horrid pictures is not new. I remember some thirty years ago watching a film (rather than vidoe, so you can see how long ago it was) about a gang of track workers who wer run down by a train. The scene was set that the gang were sitting in a cabin with glum looks on thier faces this was mixed with a woman and child running from the house in terror. The moral was about ensuring that competent lookouts were correctly used but the effect was absolutely tremendous, the whole group watching the film were astounded and the memory has stuck all this time. So using some rather graphic films/videos does have an impact but thier choice should be carefully considerd before you show them and the audience must be prepared beforehand.

Correction: Station nightclub fire, Rhode Island, USA.

I am pretty certain you require IP or decease next of kin permission to use these photos or videos on the legal side.

I also agree with majority of comments made.

But sadly I think you do need these type of pictures to get messages across to people, similar to Drink driving, a specially when working not so privileged countries.
Most important part is to get people to understand the hazard. risk and the prevention.

The old saying a picture says 1000 words

Having been subjected to the Bradford city and station fire videos as part of ordinary fire training I would say they may have a place for professional fire fighters but limited or no value for anything else. Why would you subject a member of your audience to the image of a trapped person screaming for their life??

If nothing gets this message across I sat next to an audience member during a video of the Bradford fire. They excused themselves and left ( I wish I had). At break she told me she had lost a school friend in that tragedy and couldn't face seeing it again. That cemented my opinion as to how effective these things are.

Although I accept that a picture speaks a thousand words and images are definately more effective than words I think there needs to be limits. For me I don't like to show graphic pictures I see it as no more than sensationalising injury and death, feeding peoples desire to know all the gory details. I'm not convinced it has any preventative qualities. What I think is more effective is a video of those who have been injured or those that have lost a loved one describing the impact it has had upon their lives. That is much more effective in my opinion a it makes people think (whihc has long term effects) rather than just shokcing them (which has short term effects).

But if you are going to use such images please let people know beforehand so they have the choice to leave the room. Not only are some people very squeamish but some people will have had life expereinces that you know nothing about and that image may bring back a lot of painful memories that they would rather not have to deal with again.

I think you have to judge things based on the message you want to deliver and your audience. There is a place for shocking images - even if that place is fairly limited in everyday training.

Some people respond better to an image than verbal or written communication.

Myself, I have a short attention span for lectures and training. After about 10 minutes all I normally hear is "blah blah blah blah blah".

So - I don't think you should make a habit of using shocking images but there might be a place and a time depending on subject or audience.

Know Your Audience is one of the basics of training, presentation etc.
I can recall being shown "All Quiet On The Western Front" as a young boy, by a youth leader whom I respected and later came to admire. He was very particular to cover the projector lens at certain points as he clearly knew the content of the film (yes film) and the sensibilities of 9-11 yo boys.
Thus the nature of the Bradford City or Station Club films or similar renders them not suitable for delicate audiences.
However, I suggest that if safety professionals are unable to deal with these horrors then they are probably unsuited to the job (excepting those with personal prior experience of similar events, in which case they will not need further education on the horrors of the specific subject).

Having witnessed my fathers horrific construction accident and subsequent death 22 yrs ago, I personally would not like to see images of him on a Health and Safety course. However, talking about the experience on numerous courses I have delivered has helped me come to terms with those horrible events, and has made my course attendees realize that these incidents do happen to real people and how it affects their lives.

John

I think both Coges and Garrick make good points.

If you don't have permission to use the image then probably best not to. And even if you do certain images may be illegal.

I did see a video some years ago about a guy who had been badly burnt by, I think caustic soda, and authorised use of the incident details and images of the injuries so that others could learn from his mistake.

Context plays an important part.

Just showing images of mangled bodies will probably press the wrong buttons.

Whilst many have commented on the humanistic aspects; not many have discussed the legal.
Whilst we all find the pictured of dead workers abhorant, it should be remembered that legally the image is not the property of the deceased or their estate. The title to the picture remains with the photographer.
Where a photographer is employed by an organisation and uses that organisations camera then the copyright may be owned by that organisation.

I attended a course (safe driving) delivered by one of the fire & rescue services in England. The course contained some brief but, in my opinion, effective images of real incidents. The images were mixed with the reactions and effects on people directly affected by the incidents. It's message was hard hitting, that was how it was intended. The course certainly had an effect on me. A positive one. But some attendees did not like it, they felt that the images/ content were too gruesome. The course had an effect on them. A negative one.
So what might be good for some is not for others. Working in the construction industry I firmly believe that there needs be to an element of 'gruesome' to properly get the message across to some people. It can become a gruesome industry if we allow it. We don't want that, do we? Yes, ethics do need to be considered but this must be tempered to who you are delivering the course to and what message you need/ want to convey.

The Bradford City Fire and (Dublin?) Nightclub Fire were both captured on film and are both horrific. However when used as part of a fire risk assessment training programme they can be effective in showing the realities of a failed fire management regime


I used a video of the Bradford fire many years ago to demonstrate the speed that fire can spread.

I was then stopped by a participant who wished to leave the room as his uncle was in that fire.

i HAVE NEVER SHOWN IT SINCE!

As other respondents have said there are other ways - I learnt a big lesson that day -

what we are all trying to get past is the "it will never happen to me"

This has nothing to do with original post which was about the use of accident pictures in presentations.

You seem to have got the impression I'm sqeemish, I'm not but I have more respect for the injured person, family and friends (whether I know them or not) to use the gore to proove a point. My role has involved me investigating serious accidents. Part of this role is communicating the learning from these. I've never needed pictures of the injury to do this. Images of the accident scene with a description are just as effective if not more so.

I am also aware of the consequences of failure but don't feel it needs to be taught through shocking imagery.

Whether and when to use such images has always been a matter for debate. One aspect that has not been mentioned thus far is the importance of the unexpected nature of the shock in the image. That moment when our attention is grabbed by the unexpected factor in the image is what justifies the use of the image.

We all know what injuries sustained in a serious car accident are likely to look like. We do not need a graphic personalised image to see that picture. There is no surprise, nothing unexpected about it. Therefore, it can easily feel like gratuitous voyeurism.

If, however, there is an unexpected twist to the detail of the accident. Lets say it happened in circumstances where most of the audience would have expected minor damage. Now we have an unexpected image of the damage to the car that will shock, challenge and increase awareness. Which is usually what we are trying to achieve.

So by showing pictures of unguarded machines or unsafe behaviours and asking what injuries could be/were caused as a result we can reference those personal images to gain the same effect. We do not need to show the graphic images of injury.

In summary, the impact of human suffering graphically depicted is rarely as effective as some believe. Shock your audience with the unexpected by all means but do not expect simplistic images of human injury to have any positive or long lasting effects. It is much more likely to harm those who either have personal references to the circumstances or are sensitive to such suffering.

p48

In deciding what images, if any, to show to whom it's appropriate to consider the attitudes and values, etc of the intended target audience/s.

To give a non-OS&H example, during the conflict in Bosnia in the 1990s the TV news channels in the UK reported that a mortar bomb had exploded in a busy Sarajevo square on market day. About 50 civilians were killed and many more were injured. The reports included brief film footage which showed a few stretchers being carried with bodies on them (fully covered by blankets), and also some persons walking around with bandages on hands and arms, etc. Later I happened to see a German TV news channel (Nord Deutsche Rundfunk or a similar mainstream TV channel) which included the same video footage as the UK reports plus gruesome shots of dead bodies and distressed untreated casualties in the market square. Even if the news broadcast was after any German children's viewing watershed, it indicated that perhaps German adults tend to be brought up to be less squeamish than Brits about images of graphic injuries and real corpses. By comparison it also showed the extent to which news clips shown in the UK are sanitised or suitably edited depending on one's point of view.

Although I tend not to be shocked myself by gruesome photos or video clips, I still prefer some warning about them plus the option to choose whether or not I see them. This applies to people who send out e-mails with gruesome photos. One example about 2 years or so ago was an e-mail with photos of an American in a hospital casualty unit who had become impaled on a fence post during a car or motor bike accident and was evidently still very much alive in hospital with the post protruding through his torso. Apart from showing an example of someone who had survived a horrific accident against all the odds, the e-mail had no other value. It was the e-equivalent of being taken to see a Victorian freak show featuring seriously deformed people.

It's likely that presentations during medical training sessions and conferences include some very graphic images. Even though doctors are less squeamish than most people (having got through anatomy practicals at the start of their first year of medical school) I guess that most of them tend to prefer some warning before seeing such images.