How to perform Accident Investigation

In this Article you will learn about  Incident,  Accident , Accident Investigation  and procedure for doing this investigation. From the following chart you came to know that most of the workplace fatalities occured due to Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA), and second major cause of fatalities are from srtucking by moving, falling or stationary objects and third casuse is  Heart attacks or strokes.Now what to do to control these fatalities at workplace?

  HSE Professionals are using  Accident Investigation  for the control of future occurence of any incident/accident

What is  accident ?

An unplanned and unwelcomed event which interrupts normal activity

What is the  Aim of the Accident  Investigation ?

Main Aim of the Investigation is to prevent a recurrence of the same accident.

but we can use Accident Investigation  to

• Exonerate individuals or management
• Satisfy insurance requirements
• Defend a position for legal arguement
• Or, to assign blame

    accidents have two things in common

 they all have outcomes from the accident and They all have contributory factors that cause the accident.

Outcomes of Accidents

•    NEGATIVE ASPECTS

–        DEATH & INJURY

One of the serious outcome of accident is injury or death of worker

–        DISEASE

Other dangerous outcome is Disease

–        Damage to equipment & property

–        Litigation costs

–        Lost productivity

•    POSITIVE ASPECTS

–        Accident investigation

–        Change to safety programs

Contributing factors

• Environmental
• Design
• Systems & procedures
• Human behaviour

Environmental

• noise
• vapors, fumes, dust
• light
• heat
• critters

• DESIGN
• Workplace layout
• Design of tools & equipment

• Systems & procedures
• lack of systems & procedures
• inappropriate systems &  procedures

• HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
• Common to all accidents
• Not limited to the person involved in the accident

Who should investigate ?

Answer to this question is dependent on severity of the accident. Investigation can be performed by a team or indiviuals or any competent person in short all the following are eligible to consider in a team.

        

• individuals involved
• supervisor
• safety supervisor
• upper management
• outside consultants
  

Investigation strategy

• gather information & establish facts
• isolate essential contributory factors
• determine corrective actions
• implement corrective actions

    Fact gathering

be impartial & objective
compile procedures & rules for the area

isolate accident scene

photos & diagrams

do not discard or destroy anything

gather maintenance record on equipment involved

• obtain information
• injured
• witnesses
• supervisors
• other personnel

Interviews (separately)

• what were you doing?
• how do you think the accident occurred?
• how were you trained for the job?
• what is the safety procedure for this job?

• obtain facts not opinions
• make it clear the object of the investigation is to avoid recurrence, not to apportion blame

isolate essential contributory factors

• investigation team should
• evaluates all factors concerned
• isolates the key factor(s) by asking the following question....

   would the accident have happened if this particular factor was not present?

    Determine corrective actions

• investigation team should 
• interprets & draws conclusion
• distinction between intermediate & underlying causes
• recommendations based on key contributory factors and underlying causes

Implement corrective actions

• investigation team should do the following 
• recommendation(s) must be communicated clearly
• strict time table established
• follow up conducted

Benefits of accident investigation

• preventing recurrence
• identifying out-moded procedures
• improvements to work environment
• increased productivity
• improvement of operational & safety procedures
• raises safety awareness level
•    when an organization reacts swiftly and postively to accidents and injuries, its actions reaffirm its commitment to the safety and well-being of its employees

I hope you have learnt a lot from this article, We are trying to provide you everything in easy and practical way , If you have any question feel free to comment, also subscribe for our future article so you can read our upcoming articles.

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