THE HUMAN ERROR
SAFETY IS HARD BY GORDON DUPONT
My friend Wilson Bateman of Global Training Edge uses these words in his book: 7 Safety Habits. If you just stop and think about it for a minute, he is absolutely right. Safety is hard, and that’s why we often come up with unsafe short cuts. Let’s take the present Covid-19. Its older brother which earned the name “Spanish flu of 1918” (even though it never started in Spain), killed somewhere between 20 and 50 million people — 675,000 of them in the United States. Over 500 million caught this flu which was about 1/3 of the world’s population at the time. The average flu kills approximately 250,000 to 500,000 people worldwide per year with the US contributing about 3,600 to 49,000 per year to this number. To date this virus has killed well over 100,000 in the US and may be just getting started. The virus spreads mainly by person-to-person and has a BRN (Basic number that a single person is likely to spread to others) of 2 to 5. Measles had a number of 15 to 18, while Polio, which my mother caught when I was a kid, had a number of 5 to 9. With all these statistics, the world knows that to keep the virus from spreading; people must be kept separated. But some people will gather in parks and beaches and demand their “freedom.” Why? Because SAFETY IS HARD! On a more personal note, I skydived
in my younger days. I was given about an hour’s training with the key being
to always: “Arch one thousand.” “Look one thousand.” “Reach one thousand,” “Pull one thousand.” If you did that four static line jumps in a row, you were on your own. When you went to pull the ripcord that your life depended on, you were to bring both hands in to maintain stability. I, being “smarter” than the average
jumper, found I could reach in and pull the ripcord so fast that I didn’t need to look or bring the other hand in. By the way it takes about 12 seconds of freefall to reach a terminal velocity of about 120 mph in a stable freefall. Each jump was higher and faster up to terminal velocity. On my 13th jump I was at terminal velocity when I reached for the ripcord with my superfast no look method and grabbed the harness instead. With one arm out I started rolling and was still rolling when I finally pulled the
ripcord. The end result was a “May West” (got that name because it looked like a big brassiere like I’d suppose she had in the silent movie era) parachute of about 8 ft. diameter. That slowed me down to about 60 mph and give me more time to open the reserve. Why didn’t I do as I was taught? SAFETY IS HARD, and what I was doing was easier. Rules are often written in blood. Thankfully it wasn’t mine. Where we often see Safety shortcuts being taken is in the wearing of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). Ever see someone cutting their grass wearing flip-flops? Ever ground something on a grinder (not aluminum I hope) without wearing a face shield or goggles? What’s wrong with grinding aluminum? It sticks to the grinding wheel and with a high coefficient of expansion it can expand enough in a grinder pore to cause it to crack and explode in your face. I have seen a learner doing just that and stopped him before he wore it. That face shield could save your life or at least your face but if it’s not handy have you ever just looked away as you ground your metal because SAFETY IS HARD.
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DOMmagazine.com | july 2020
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