Fatalities: A Difficult But Critical Topic for EHS Professionals

There are difficult subjects in all aspects of life, and fatalities are certainly one of those subjects. SH&E professionals know only too well the far-reaching effects of any work-related tragedy. Despite that knowledge, many still believe “it can’t happen to me.” But it can, because a workplace fatality is not a random event. The signs of an impending catastrophe may be hidden beneath the radar, but they are there, waiting to be discovered.

So what can SH&E professionals do to proactively identify and control exposures that lead to serious injuries and fatalities? Apply forward-thinking methodologies, such as those that will be discussed during ASSE’s upcoming Fatality and Severe Loss Prevention Symposium.

Over the past few weeks, EHS Works has featured several posts that highlight topics that will be discussed during the symposium. Here’s a quick recap, as well links to each blog post.

• Keynote speaker Catherine Tinsley will examine seven strategies to help detect and learn from near misses.
• Keynote speaker Rob Shuster will present a workshop on how organizations can prepare for workplace violence.
• Safety thought leader Tom Krause will share his insights on how organizations can take proactive steps to recognize and respond to the signals of vulnerability to catastrophic loss. 
• In their two sessions, Rob Fisher and Ron Pryor will highlight 10 human error traps that if avoided can greatly decrease the likelihood of error and improve worker safety. 
• Michael Smith will share the three-pronged hurt-free model that ExxonMobil is using to engage workers in safety.
• Prevention through design continues to grow in popularity. Dave Walline will explain why it’s an effective way to directly attack high-level risks associated with fatal/serious mishaps. 
• “Everything was discovered in the past but we seem to forget,” says Michael Allocco, who will examine how illogic creeps into organizations, leading to hazard exposures that can produce tragic results.

Preventing fatalities requires a multidisciplinary approach that takes nothing for granted. As Catherine Tinsley says, “People want to prevent crises before they occur rather than just investigate them post-hoc for what went wrong. Understanding how organizational disasters often are a complex interaction of quite mundane events can help organizational actors, such as safety and health professionals, be on the lookout for early warning signals, which may presage looming catastrophes."

The symposium also presents a great opportunity to support the ASSE Foundation's Family Scholarship Fund. Learn more here.