If you’ve been following this series, you know that it was founded on a simple but powerful idea: personal accountability. In Part 1, we discussed agency, or the degree to which you believe you are responsible for your own safety. Part 2 examined mental preparation, the “firmware” that governs how you think, react and perform under pressure. And in Part 3, we explored spiritual health; that’s the internal code that guides your behavior when the right choice is inconvenient or uncomfortable. This article addresses physiological health, which is the bedrock of the previous three factors…

Our industry’s persistent serious injury and fatality (SIF) statistics indicate that we are aiming at the wrong target, despite our best intentions. A small shift in our industry’s approach to incident investigations, however, could lead to meaningful change. Decades of professional experience have taught me that when we search for an event’s root cause, we typically get what we aim at. By that, I mean humans can easily fall victim to confirmation bias, choosing to believe seemingly logical but erroneous theories rather than wrestle with uncertainty. But unless we use objective facts to de…

Beneath every major American city lies a hidden electrical network that powers homes, hospitals and commercial industry. Manholes and vaults are the gateways to these underground systems, providing access to low-, medium- and high-voltage infrastructure essential to reliable power distribution. Because they also present some of the most hazardous conditions that utility workers regularly encounter, conducting thorough manhole and vault inspections is foundational to employee safety, system integrity and operational reliability. Manholes and vaults are typically classified as confined space…

Despite decades of progress in occupational safety, serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs) continue to occur in organizations with mature safety management systems, extensive training programs and low total recordable injury rates. Focused prevention programs have proliferated in response to these persistent events – often accompanied by executive attention, new metrics and a sense of urgency – yet many struggle to deliver meaningful harm reduction. This is rarely due to apathy or lack of effort, more commonly stemming from foundational assumptions that do not align with how serious incide…

During the annual T&D PowerSkills Trainers Conference earlier this year, several of our clients asked about OSHA’s stance on heat illness prevention. Months later, we are still fielding questions about the topic, as are Incident Prevention’s subject matter experts. The bottom line is that employers are legally required to have a plan in place to protect all heat-exposed workers. It’s as simple as that. Confusion usually stems from the difference between state OSHA plans and federal rules. After reviewing state plans that include detailed heat illness prevention protocols, some industry…

The electric utility industry experienced some catastrophic events during the first quarter of this year, including the deaths of multiple employees. I always feel incredibly sad when I hear about another serious injury or fatality (SIF). My heart goes out to everyone who has been impacted by these incidents. I know I am not alone in asking why catastrophic industry events continue to occur, especially since most were preventable. It is also curious that while lineworkers are often trained in leadership and human performance early in their career, they rarely receive any refresher training…

Q: In the April-May 2024 issue, Incident Prevention responded to a reader’s question about the OSHA digger derrick exemption for licensed operators (see https://incident-prevention.com/blog/april-may-2024-qa/). Have you heard anything since then about exemption enforcement trends? For example, has OSHA indicated that it might more closely assess specific lifting activities? A: OSHA 29 CFR 1926 Subpart CC, “Cranes and Derricks in Construction” – as its title suggests – applies only to construction activities. Subpart CC covers a contractor’s crane operators when they are performing upgrade…

If you’re trained to provide CPR, do you know the average number of chest compressions you administer per minute? Most people don’t. What if we ask you to name a song that would help you keep an even tempo as you deliver those compressions? We bet you could answer that, and if you can’t, we’ll give you some options during our free July 8 webinar. Now, let’s go a step further and imagine a world in which we regularly incorporate music into safety-related training, making sessions more interesting, fun and engaging. Maybe an apprentice plays a song during a job briefing, then leads a disc…

Several months ago, my dad and I drove to Roanoke, Virginia, to watch my son compete in a collegiate boxing match. It was the kind of weekend that makes you grateful: time with family, a little adventure on the road, and a front-row seat to watch your child chase a dream. One of the moments that has stuck with me most, however, had nothing to do with boxing. It was a lesson in how quickly the human mind can create stories that feel true in the moment yet aren’t rooted in reality. The Missing Wallet At one point during our drive, I pulled my wallet out of my pocket to pay a tollbooth fe…

The 2025 Guadalupe River flooding tragedy in Texas was not a surprise. Nor are the hurricanes, wildfires and other flooding events that continue to accelerate in frequency and intensity. What is surprising is how many organizations still treat extreme weather as an external disruption rather than a core operational risk. That framing is the issue. Risk management is a system capacity question, and too many organizations are answering it poorly. Simply put, the need for urgent action is already here. The cost of pretending otherwise will continue to escalate. Companies wisely navigating…

Open the trench, vault or manhole. Strip back the jacket. Expose the neutrals. Remove the semicon and insulation. Crimp the connector. Rebuild the conductor shield, insulation and semicon. Seal the outside. This splicing routine eventually becomes second nature for medium-voltage cable splicers, which can make some workdays feel like a rote checklist to slog through. But each procedural step exists to help ensure precision electrical devices are competently dismantled and rebuilt. Reliable execution is more likely when splicers understand the logic at the root of each step. This article ex…

Utilities are investing millions of dollars in drones, automated monitoring systems and artificial intelligence applications. These tools offer unprecedented safety and operational advantages as grid complexities evolve – assuming crews willingly use them as intended. New technology should make it safer and easier for frontline workers to execute their tasks, particularly when stressed or fatigued. Deploying drones to conduct post-storm inspections, for instance, keeps workers safely distanced from hazardous areas while potentially speeding up triage efforts. Digital pre-job briefing forms…

The previous articles in this series examined two factors that strongly influence personal safety. Accountability is the idea that meaningful improvement begins when workers accept responsibility for their own safety decisions. Through mental preparation, workers gain an understanding of the ways in which temperament, emotional triggers and habits affect their judgment under pressure. This article builds on those concepts by addressing spiritual preparation, a third factor not nearly as commonly discussed that nevertheless plays a critical role in how people behave on the job. Spiritual…

In safety management, data is often treated as objective truth. Leaders use incident rates, near-miss reports, injury trends and predictive models to guide them as they prioritize risk and allocate organizational resources. Yet data can quietly mislead us, particularly when bias is embedded in what we collect and our measurement and interpretation methods. Effective, ethical safety leaders continuously work to recognize and address these distortions. Exploring Various Biases A widely cited World War II-era example illustrates the dangers of biased data. During the war, Allied forces st…

I’m not sure how I became an analyst. It wasn’t something I planned for. Various types of analyst roles exist, but I primarily analyze incidents, breaking down and studying the elements of events to identify causes and effects. Incident analysis, done well, ultimately helps prevent undesired future outcomes. Over the last 15 years, I have analyzed a half-dozen apprentice training yard accidents and watched two videos of apprentice-involved incidents. These events are reminders that lineworkers frequently learn their lessons the hard way. I continue striving to change that fact because – fa…