2/22/2021 It is truly amazing how fast time flies. I was thinking of an event that seemed like it happened a few years ago, but it was closer to 25 years. But the incident remains fresh in my mind. I was working at a naval facility in Southern California. It Read more…
10/13/2014 Nationally, crashes involving a large truck or bus killed 4,281 people in 2013. Unfortunately, this number has not changed in the past four years. A few weeks ago, on Friday September 26, a tracker-trailer crossed a southern Oklahoma highway median and plowed into the side of a Texas college Read more…
4/15/2019 Many years ago, I was teaching a HAZWOPER Course to a group of workers from the petroleum industry. The topic was emergency response and while conveying the importance of taking proper precautions during emergency scenarios, one of the participants brought up a situation which really reinforced my message. It Read more…
4/1/2019 On May 4, 1988, a fire mysteriously began which then was followed by several explosions occurring at the Pacific Engineering and Production Company of Nevada (PEPCON) chemical plant in Henderson, Nevada, just outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. The disaster caused two fatalities, 372 injuries, and an estimated $100 million of damage. Read more…
3/25/2019 Zero Accident Philosophy: ZAP. This is the concept that all accidents are preventable. At the same time, there are many that say the Zero Accident Philosophy is strictly a lofty goal and realistically speaking, can never be achieved. Maybe for a limited time, but the ideal of ensuring a Read more…
9/17/2018 During the recent confirmation hearings for Judge Kavanaugh, I listened to a line of questioning concerning an incident in 2010 when the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fined Seaworld in San Diego after a trainer was killed by a captive killer whale. This was the first time OSHA Read more…
9/4/2018 Safety and Health (S&H) professionals are obsessed with accident precursors. That’s because the S&H community is in the business of accident prevention. Of course, if an unwanted event does occur, the next step is to minimize the potential damage. For instance, preventative measures for an accidental fire would be Read more…
7/16/2018 Any person who has studied accidents – workplace or otherwise – investigating the basic cause of an unwanted event would inevitably find at the foundation, was a lack of understanding or cognizant awareness of the surroundings involving the incident. Take, for example, the recent rescue of the boys’ “Wild Read more…
6/11/2018 It is understandable that many people lump the organizational processes of lessons learned, feedback and continuous improvement within the same category. True, they do have similarities, but there are differences as each serving their specific purpose. To begin, feedback is part of a larger, all-encompassing work process described within Read more…
3/26/2018 It was on March 11; a Sunday evening in New York City when a helicopter plunged into the East River, killing five people. Only the pilot survived. For those not familiar with New York City, New York’s East River separates the Boroughs of Manhattan from Queens and Brooklyn, and Read more…