First day on the job, what does Aaron do? He slices his thumb trying to move a shelving unit that insisted it wasn’t going anywhere. Because he’s a bleeder, he had to take care of it quickly to avoid making a mess. Chatted the boss up about it, and the boss took his turn at the shelving unit. He sliced his thumb in the exact same spot.
Aaron could have perhaps spared his boss the pain had he properly reported the injury, or at least where the offending metal piece was lying in wait. I think both men were irritated at the little metal piece. Both also agreed their slight injuries were not “reportable.”
I first read about Heinrich’s Safety triangle last month and have been pondering it since then. As an employee of the Traveler’s Insurance Company, Heinrich reviewed accident reports. In the course of his work, he observed that for every accident with a major injury, there were 29 accidents that caused minor injury, and 300 that caused no injury. This has become known as Heinrich’s Law, the 300-29-1 accident pattern, and numerous others. In the 1960s, Frank Bird expanded the triangle or pyramid, as you see below.
The accuracy and importance have been discussed since that time; the exact numbers aren’t all that critical to our purposes.
As we go about our lives, we engage in all sorts of unsafe acts. Using one hand to carry a very heavy pot instead of two. Standing higher on the ladder than we should. Or even getting on that ladder at all. Most of the time nothing bad happens, so obviously it is safe to repeat the action. (Or not.)
We have hundreds of “near misses”, incidents that occur so frequently we hardly notice them at all. Medically speaking, these are minor scrapes, hangnails, splinters, colds, etc. We already know how to manage many of these without reference at all, because they are things we commonly experience. We already have those supplies on hand because we are always prepared for stuff like that, as well as the problems that don’t occur frequently, but are simple enough to review and manage appropriately. How to clean a wound (well, we should know this), how to purify water for drinking (we definitely have to know this, but I sure as heck can’t remember how many drops of bleach of which concentration to add to a gallon of water, or exact measurements for preparing a stock solution of pool shock), or which essential oil to use on a small first or second degree burn.
Then there are the minor accidents. For our purposes, those might be bronchitis, lacerations requiring stitches, ulcers, urinary tract infections. The issues we might see a doctor for, but which we can handle on our own with education and supplies.
Next come the more serious injuries and illnesses, things like fractures, pneumonia, strokes and heart attacks, appendicitis, cellulitis, anaphylaxis. At this time, we’d turn to a physician for most of these. In a collapse we’ll be saying something like, “Oh, heck, I wish this hadn’t happened. And where is the doctor?” These are the ones we hope don’t happen to us at all. Some of them we won’t be able to fix. Massive coronary or stroke. Amputation. Even appendicitis or a broken hip.
This last group of the most serious injuries sometimes finds its way into the death level.
Much of the scientific world’s discussion of the safety triangle centers around whether being more careful actually prevents accidents, at least the big ones.
We know being careful pays off. Wear gloves and dust masks. Wear safety glasses. Wear those safety aprons and chaps when cutting wood. Be careful chopping onions. Maybe even get those gloves that prevent you from chopping your finger off.
Those who prepare will be fully capable of handling the minor injuries. Preparation for major accidents can move some of those down the scale to minor accidents. Having the supplies to perform an appendectomy (for a doctor, naturally) makes averting otherwise certain death possible. The same goes for having an epi-pen (and knowing how to re-charge/re-load them). Or having the antibiotics for bacterial pneumonia (and conserving them for the most critical needs).
Preparation may move illnesses and injuries down the pyramid in severity.
Lack of preparation can move them up.
As you pursue preparedness at an elevated level, don’t panic. Pray for guidance. We aren’t going to experience top-tier injuries and illnesses every day. We’ll have a few at most. Prepare first for the common, bottom-tier injuries, the ones that will become more serious without intervention. Then work your way up the pyramid for afflictions most likely to affect you and your family.
Links to related posts:
Prioritizing the Acquisition of Supplies
Rational Approach to Acquiring Medical Supplies
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accident_triangle
At work we use this all the time, anytime we have a minor accident (aka below reporting threshold for regulatory bodies), we were finding a number if near misses. We started tracking and requiring reporting of the near misses and what it show us were the areas people had become complacent. What happens in normalcy bias. People will cut a safety corner once because of a reason that seems good at the time, then because they got away with it they do it a 2nd time etc. Eventually they get to a point that the risky behaviors are the normal and thats when the inevitable happens and a major incident happens. But before the major event you will see the frequency of near niss events go up and sharply as the risky behaviour becomes more normalized across a crew. Seeing the pattern of near misses allows us to intervene before a major event. Its paid off for us.
ReplyDeleteExile1981
Thanks for sharing that.
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