b'HARPUpdate Preventing Severe Injuries AApproach to an Old Problem New Frank J. Marino, CSP MRCA Safety Adviser Investigating fatalities never getsneedto rethinkourapproachtoquencyreductionwillresultin anyier. The fatality investigationpred potentiallydisastrousseverity reduction. This popularlyeas icting beliefnot I did two weeks ago was no excep accidents?heldisnecessarily true. If tion.In a recentProfessional Safetywe do nothing different thanare we Ayear old male, father of aarticle, theconceptoffrequencydoing today, these types of trends 27 four-year-olddaughter,fell50\'breeding severityischallenged.will continue" (Manuele, 2008). througha skylighttohis deathRecentstatisticaldatafromtheAlso accordingto theManuele while replacing metal deck. He wasBureauofLaborStatistics(BLS)article, in a study performed by the arigger and was properlyshowsthatalthoughlesssevereauthorinvolvingover1,200 inciqualified trainedinfallprotection.Itwasaccidentsresultingindaysawaydent investigations, aproporlarge especially difficult to learn that thefrom work (10 days or less) havetion of incidents resultingin seriindividualhadhispersonalfalldecreased significantly from1995ous injuries and fatalities occur: Ifaroofmgarrest harness on, withto tieto 2 accidents involving 10 or Whenunusual andnon-routine means006, off available, but never hooked on.moredaysawayfromworkhavework is being performed contractor can planAsaninvestigator,I kn weincreasedsignificantly duringthe Whenupsetsoccur - meaning ow ahead for predictablealways see signs of minor incidentssame time period (Manuele, 2008).when normal operations become that wouldlead up toreAccording to the article, in order toabnormal seve acciexposmes that can bedents like this one.In an article Ireduce serious injuries and fatali In non-production activities wrote for this publication lastr, Ities,safetyprofessionalsmust Wheresour ofhigh energy expected (as well asyea ces described the benefit of usingtheaddressthelong-held andstillare present those that are nottraditional frequency/severityrela appliedbeliefthatreducinginci In what canbe called "at-pl nk aexpected),etionshipapproachtopreventingdentfrequencywillequivalentlyconstructionoperations"(i.e:~ thes serious accidents. If we applied thatreduceincidentsthatresultinconstructionwork thatis comaccidents can beapproachto thiscase, previousseverity.pleted by in-house personnel) inspectionsofthiscrewshouldThe author of this article is notTheity Iin ded fatal investigatedclueliminated.have indicated some infractions asalon Atthe2003Behavioralmost of these characteristics. Using e. it relatesto fallprotection.ThereSafetyNowConference,Jamesthe traditional methods of predicting hadtobesome incidentsat theJohn a managingdirectoratsevere accidents, the accident may son, predicted. company that related to fall protec Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., saidnever have been tion violations.all,pro "I\'m sure that many of us have said Aftersafety fessionals are taught that afre atonetimeoranotherthatIre-highContinued on page 5 quencyinminorincidentswill eventually leadtoa majorevent . right? Anotherinterestingfactabout this case was the activity being performed at the time of the accident was something the employee very seldom did. As atterfa the ma ofct, company he worked for very rarely performed this activity,it is not a as part of their everyday activities. So if thereis little-to-noexposure to this activityaular basis, onreg how couldwehaveforeseenthatthe companywasincreasingits chances for aincident? Was severe, this accident an anomaly,do we or 4'