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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]