HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT FOR CONSTRUCTION

Health and Safety Management for Construction: Accident Investigation

Health and Safety Management for Construction: Accident Investigation

Ideally, an investigation would be conducted by someone experienced in accident causation, experienced in investigative techniques, completely knowledgeable of the work processes, procedures, persons, and industrial relations environment of a specific situation. Some jurisdictions provide guidance such as requiring that it must be conducted together, with both management and work represented, or that the investigators must be knowledgeable about the work processes involved. The advantage is that this person is likely to understand most about the work and persons involved and the current conditions. Furthermore, the supervisor can usually take immediate remedial action. The counter argument is that there may be an attempt to gloss over the supervisors shortcomings in the accident. This situation should not arise if the accident is investigated by a team of people, and if the worker representative(s) and the members review all accident investigation reports thoroughly. An investigator who believes that accidents are caused by unsafe conditions will likely try to uncover conditions as causes. On the other hand, one who believes they are caused by unsafe acts will attempt to find the human errors that are causes. Therefore, it is necessary to examine some underlying factors in a string of connections of events that ends in an accident.

The significant issue is that even in the most seemingly straightforward accidents, seldom, if ever, is there only a single cause. The accident investigation process involves the following steps:

Report the accident occurrence to a designated person inside the association

Provide first help and medical care to injured person(s) and prevent further injuries or damage

Investigate the accident

Identify the causes

Report the findings

Develop a design for corrective activity

Implement the plan

Evaluate the effectiveness of the corrective action

Make changes for continuous improvement As little time as possible should be lost between the moment of an accident or near miss and the beginning of the investigation. In this way, one is most likely to be able to observe the conditions as they were at the time, prevent disturbance of evidence, and identify witnesses. The tools that members of the investigating team may need (pencil, paper, camera, movie, camera flash, tape measure, etc.) should be immediately available so that no time is wasted. Many models of accident causation have been proposed, extending from Heinrich's domino theory to the sophisticated Management Oversight and Risk Tree (MORT). The simple model shown in Figure 1 attempts to illustrate that the causes of any accident can be grouped into five categories - task, material, environment, personnel, and management. When this model is used, possible causes in each category should be investigated. Each category is examined more closely below. Remember that these are sample questions only: no attempt has been made to develop a comprehensive checklist. (See Appendix Exhibit 1)

 

Figure 1: Accident Causation

 

     The steps in accident investigation are simple: the accident investigators gather data, analyze it, draw conclusions, and make ...