Wet Stuff On The Red Stuff: Watch Out, Here Comes the Safety Man!

If you have ever had the responsibility of safety oversight, you have probably overheard the comment “Watch out, here comes the safety man”, wherein all workers quickly put their safety glasses on, tie off to their fall protection, put out their cigarettes, and hide their alcohol. Of course we all know that “true safety” is doing the right thing and being safe when nobody is watching. Over my 30 years in industry, in the safety field mostly, I have seen some real stupid people doing some even stupider stuff. Here are just a few absolutely true examples.

A Safety Manager was touring his plant in South Carolina when he happened upon a package that immediately indicated to him it was a bomb. He reacted quickly and isolated the area, got people away, and activated his emergency action plan. Fire Departments, Bomb Squads, and Law Enforcement Officials from all over the state responded to the plant. Numerous precautions were put in place and the package surrounded. A remote controlled robot armed with a camera, water jets, and bean bags was put on standby ready to mitigate the explosive device. The Bomb Squad Commander arrived at the Command Post and interviewed the Safety Manager and asked him the burning question “So, what made you suspect this package?” The Safety Manager replied “It was very evident to me when I saw the box was labeled with large black letters that said ‘BOM’. The Safety Manager was fired the next day.

A guy I worked with was up working on the roof of his house one day. Having seen all the safety videos at work, he decided to be safe and use fall protection. He didn’t have a harness or an anchor point, so he improvised. Since he was working on the roof on the backside of his house, he took a rope, tied it around his waist, ran it over the peak of the roof, and tied it to the bumper of his pick-up truck in the front of the house. He actually slipped a couple of times and the rope kept him from falling. After working about an hour or two up there in the heat, he heard a noise that paralyzed him with fear. It was the sound of someone starting his truck! Suddenly, his rope got very tight and wham!..off his feet he went. With his finger nails digging in the shingles with one hand and desperately grasping to untie the rope with the other hand, he was over the peak in a blink of an eye as his truck pulled out of his driveway. He flew off the roof, onto the concrete drive, and then was dragged on the asphalt for about 75 yards. His wife, who had hopped in the truck and headed out for shopping, heard his bloody screams of STOP several times, so she finally did. He ended up with a broken leg and the worst case of road rash you had ever seen. Of course, we at work swore his wife did it on purpose.

The moral of the story is - If you ever try this, be sure to apply lock-out/tag-out also by putting all sets of keys to your truck in your pocket.

I was overseeing a job at a brick company where a large kiln was being refurbished. The kiln was about a football field in length, about 50 feet wide, and about 15 feet tall. A group of workers were replacing the fire brick inside one end, while another group at the other end were working on the concrete roof of the kiln. It was a routine day with me having to make small safety corrections here and there until I walked past a guy using a jack-hammer on the roof of the kiln. He was standing in one spot in the middle of the concrete roof, jack-hammering in a circle around himself. Yep, just like on a bugs bunny cartoon. So, I quickly yelled for him to stop. I asked him what in the world was he thinking, to which he replied “what?” I had to painstakingly explain what would happen when he made a full turn and the concrete gave way. To which he said “Oh, I guess I would have fell through, huh?” I said “Yep, fifteen feet below with a jack-hammer and concrete landing on top of you”.

Here are a few other persons acting “no so smart”. These are actual driver statements taken from police accident reports.

"The accident happened because I had one eye on the car in front of me, one eye on the pedestrian in the crosswalk, and one eye on the car behind me."

"I started to slow down but the traffic was more stationary than I thought."

"I pulled into the emergency lane with smoke coming from under the hood. I realized the car was on fire so I took my dog and smothered it with a blanket."

"I didn't think the speed limit applied after midnight"

"My windshield shattered. Cause unknown. Probably Voodoo."

"The car in front of me hit the pedestrian but he got up so I hit him again"

"I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law and headed over the embankment."

"I collided with a stationary truck coming the other way"

"A pedestrian hit me and went under my car"

"Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don't have."

"I had been driving for forty years when I fell asleep at the wheel and had an accident."

"As I approached an intersection, a stop sign suddenly appeared in a place where no stop sign had ever appeared before."

"I was sure the old fellow would never make it to the other side of the road when I struck him."

"I told the police officer that I was not injured, but after removing my hat, I found that I had a fractured skull."