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Angel Gardens Teaser – Darwin Award nomination
Conscious that I am still to post an introductory blog to orientate you all to my site, I thought I’d waste no time in sharing this piece of ‘best practice’. Works was stopped yesterday when I found one of the sub-contractor’s plant operators attempting to fix his slipped track in this location…
With work stopped the sub-contractor’s PM then informed his men of the dangers associated with this attempted task, and the remediation required to provide safe access. The operator replied in true Darwin Award style, “we don’t need to do all that extra work to gain safe access – I can limp the machine out on one track”. Needless to say, why was this not his first choice of action?
I’m amazed at the ignorance of some of the workers to the risks they seem to subject themselves to. Whether it’s just taking the easy option or trying to complete the job quickly I’m unsure – it may be both, but why would you put yourself at risk like this.
And with that I open the floor to other Darwin Award nominations for 2017…
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Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog 
I take it jmy86 is James Young? Thank you for the lovely image. There is a question sometimes asked of candidates at review on the moral courage/ethics side of this – did you delay stopping this individual from raising the IQ level on site by deleting himself in order to take a photograph and what was the route to stopping work? Stop him first then go through line management because of the immediate risk to life or go through line management because that’s the contractual requirement and you have no direct authority? I know th e correct answer but what’s the truth of it?
Rich,
Yes, you’re correct, but for the avoidance of doubt I’ve updated my details.
In answer to your questions, fortunately there were two of us conducting site inspections at the time. My colleague was photographing another part of the job at the time so he took the photo while I attempted to stop work in the true military style of “STOP, STOP, STOP!” and hand signals – the only option from my location at the time. As you identify, there was an immediate threat to life, so this was the only option available. The pedestrian access route down to the excavation goes past the sub-contractors office, so after a discussion with their PM we moved to the excavation to confirm a safe way to continue works.
Work was stopped again today – this time by the sub-contractors management – as they had individuals attempting to work at the base of the excavation prior to a safe batter being achieved. At least this time the sub-contractor’s own management procedures picked up on the issue first and swiftly addressed it.
It’s not just the blokes in my brief but recent experience. One of our tier 1 contractors (in fact two contractors as it’s a joint venture) had all lifting operations suspended for a week due to sub standard lifting plans. They’re now rewriting them all. Although it’s delaying the project on a cost + contract so I guess the client may foot the bill. I’ll do more digging and see if that’s the case. I’ve a feeling that there are no real penalties in play.
James, thank you for sharing this and the additional examples of ‘Darwinism’. There are several issues illustrated in the photograph which we discussed on the H&S phase of the course re: working near excavations, in excavations etc. Your encounter with the operative brings home the fact that the workers generally know the right thing to do but unless they have adequate supervision they are likely to take the perceived short cut to ‘get the job done’ because of the time/ money saving.
Imagine if the operative had fallen into the excavation or worse …………………………. any time/ money saved? Remember the employers duty to provide a SPW, SSoW and I,I,T,S?
And well done for the moral courage to bring this to the notice of those in control.
This sort of thing is alarmingly common in the real world, as mad as it seems. Most of our course have produced blogs on similar H&S issues at some point in our time on placement. Its always worth a decent blog though, not least to give JM/RF/JF some fresh evidence for next years ‘things idiots do/Risk!!’ stage of the Geo/Foundation/H&S modules.
Personally, when dealing with these sort of problems I found asking anyone involved on site to ‘Prove/Explain to me why you think that practice is safe’ works well. They almost never understand (even less than I did!) the engineering principles behind the issue you have rightly raised and therefore run out of witty excuses pretty quickly.
Still, waiving arms and shouting undoubtedly works just as well. Each to their own……..
PS: And that looks like a pretty large trench to not have a handrail/fall protection system installed around it.
A gem
I’d have thought that this was one of those photos you’d use if you were running a
‘spot 10 H&S concerns’ session