| In recent studies, the Director of Engineering Services for the Insurance Company of North America ordered an analysis into Health and Safety reported incidents. An analysis was made of 1 753 498 accidents reported by 297 cooperating companies.
These companies represent 21 different industrial groups employing 1 750 000 employees who worked over 3 billion man-hours during the exposure period that was analysed.
The study revealed the following ratios in the accidents reported:
For every reported major injury (resulting in death, disability, lost time or medical treatment), there were 9.8 reported minor injuries (requiring only first aid). For the 297 companies, which further analysed major injuries in their reporting the ratio was one lost time injury per 15 medical treatment injuries. In referring to the 1 – 10 -30 – 600 ratio (figure below), it should be remembered that this represents accidents and incidents reported.
As we consider the ratio, we observe that 30 property damage accidents were reported for each serious or disabling injury. Property damage accidents cost billions annually and yet they are frequently misnamed and referred to as “near accidents” / “near misses”.
Ironically this line of thinking recognises the fact that each property damage situation could probably have resulted in personal injury.
The 1-10-30-600 relationships in the ratio indicate quite clearly how foolish it is to direct our major effort at the relatively few events resulting in serious or disabling injury when there are so many significant opportunities that provide a much larger basis for more effective control of total accident losses.
(Frank E. Bird –Practical Loss Control Leadership)
The utilization of the Safe-T-Call Hotline presents therefore, an opportunity to analyse and assist in order to determine where, on the 1-10-30-600 ratio the company statistically is situated, based on all near-misses and reportable incidents received. The client would therefore be able to determine at any given interval where it statistically stands on this ratio In turn it would be able to initialise effective counter-measures to prevent a major incident from taking place (death, disability, lost time or medical treatment). |
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