Accidents
If someone says
“I had an accident”
what assumptions do you make?
What is an accident?
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In the OSH setting
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Unintended and untoward event
Unplanned, unexpected event, in a sequence of
events; it results in physical harm, injury or
disease to an individual, damage to property, a
near miss, a loss, or any combination of these
effects
A failure of a person to cope with the true
situation presented to him.
Who cares?
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Victim
Governments
Researchers
Employers
Engineers, organisational psychologists,
socioligists, quality controllers, high risk industries
Safety managers and other OSH professionals
Accident Prevention
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Hazard Identification
Risk Assessment
Controls
Tools for Occupational Health and
Safety Management
OSH reasons for
collecting accident information
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Analysis of past accidents, patterns and trends
Accident investigation
Accident notification requirements (the law)
Insurance company requirements – claims
management
Allocation of blame
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Collecting information = accident investigation
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Accident Investigation
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Purpose
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Methods vary
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To prevent accidents happening in the future
To determine the immediate (proximate) AND the
underlying (distal or root) causes of accidents
Systematic look at all contributing factors
Outcomes
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Focus on the root cause as opposed to the
consequences or a scapegoat
Conclusions linked to what actually happened
A list of recommendations for change
OSH law
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Injury and illness prevention is a legal
requirement
Accident reporting to a competent authority is a
legal requirement (subject to T&C)
Accident investigation is not a legal requirement
Analysis of organisational data is not a legal
requirement
The cost of work-related accidents
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5,500 people killed annually in Europe
60 people killed annually in Ireland
500 million working days lost in EU in 1998
as a result of accidents
4.7m accidents resulted in absences of
more than three days in EU in 1998
Direct costs
of workplace accidents
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Employee lost time
Medical and hospital costs
Compensation and liability claims
Legal costs
Insurance costs
Replacement costs (equipment, products,
personnel)
Indirect costs
of workplace accidents
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Cost of time lost by
other employees who
stop work
Cost of time lost by
supervisors
Cost of first-aider time
Cost of injury to
equipment or spoil to
materials
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Cost of interference
with production
Cost die to ensuing
loss of profit
Overhead cost of
injured employee
Administrative costs
Accident Statistics
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National and international
Classification schemes
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Local
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Harmonisation: ESAW, ILO
Recording procedures
A single major accident can dramatically alter
accident statistics
Accident Causation Models
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Heinrich’s domino model (1920s)
Bird’s loss control model (1960s)
Hale and Hale’s model (1971)
Reason’s organisational accidents model (1990s)
There is NO universally accepted model
Causes are generally seen to be at individual
level or organisational level (work activity,
working environment and organisational factors)
Accident Causation
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Accidents usually arise from a particular
combination of circumstances, not from a single
cause (but it is often necessary to attribute a
principal cause)
Accidents often preceded by near misses
No one causitive factor is implicated in all
accidents
There are wide variations in the consequences of
similar accidents/incidents
BIRD Accident Triangle (1969)
Major injury
1
Minor injury
10
30
600
Damage only
No injury or damage
Accident Investigation Tools
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MES – multilinear events sequencing
ECFC – Events and causal factors charting
FTA – fault tree analysis
MORT – management oversight and risk tree
STEP – Sequentially timed events plotting
SCAT – Systemic causal analysis technique
CMT – causal tree method
WAIT – Work Accidents Investigation Technique
 …and many more…
Accident Research
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Accident causation models been developed
since early 20th C
In the past two decades accident research
has focused on major accident analysis
Emphasis is shifting towards ordinary and
frequent accidents
Occupational Safety and
Health in Ireland
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Wide variety of work situations
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Busy
OSH is not always a priority
OSH solutions need to be:
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Easily applicable - not over-technical
Practical and user-friendly
Clearly defined with minimum ambiguity