Be safe at work

I don't work in an oilfield (I work in a datacenter lol) but am the safety guy for our organization on post. I'm just glad to see so many other safety types here.

At our workplace, last guy who hurt himself walked up to me one day and said "Uh, I need to go to the doctor." I asked why...then looked down.

Evidently he'd dropped a 150# server on the top of his right foot POINTY EDGE FIRST and blood was literally flowing out of his foot. I told him to GTFO and to the doctor (he insisted he could get there himself (facepalm) and got the ball rolling on the whole procedure. Turns out that literally right before he'd been asked if he was going to wear his safety boots and other related PPE and said "Naah, I'll be fine, besides we're on a time crunch." Had he simply worn the PPE that someone actually tried to call him out on he'd have been fine.

He wasn't on a time crunch after that. LOL Thankfully, since then, we've had absolutely no injuries in about 4 years.

 

At least he reported the incident to his supervisor promptly. We've had issues with that for whatever reason. Or the supervisor doesn't report it to ops, delaying their response to make the area safe.

 

Agreed, totally....but it's definitely not SOP for the guy to come see me before getting the injury treated. LOL I told him that yes, we need to know so we can report it through official channels (goes up the CoC to Army Safety) but that SAFETY is paramount - getting treatment takes precedence over letting me know. I think the requirement is that it be reported w/in 10 days.

We did have one person who reported it way after the fact - she fell down a flight of stairs (loose tile, wintertime, melted snow, etc.) One of the toughest things is to get people to understand that even 'close calls' should be reported - not because we think they're all huge pansies and such (lol) but so safety can evaluate to see if there are any conditions that can be addressed to prevent such things from either happening again, or becoming full on incidents. In her case, turns out she tore a tendon but reported it way the heck outside the 10 day period.

 

That was the issue at my work place. They wanted all near miss events reported under the guise of being able to prevent actual incidents. They hate the word accident because "all safety incidents can be prevented." Sounds good until you realize that translates to "any and all accidents are your fault."

Guy I worked with believed them and reported everything. Little things. Got kudos. Then when anything "big" happened it was all used against him. He was said to be at fault when he stepped on a nail in knee high weeds. They said it was a lack of situational awareness. Because he had self reported previous things they said it showed a pattern of said lack, and gave him 3 days off unpaid. Can't have safety policies taken seriously if you are going to penalize people for honest accidents.

 

You have a heavy load with all of that. I hope you have well established, trusted contractors doing your work!

I ran capital projects for 10 years at a large chemical plant. We had some well-trained, safe working contractors that were also price competitive and did good work. Procurement couldn't leave us alone, though, and was always trying to bring in other contractors. Even if they had a good safety record, THEY DID NOT KNOW OUR PLANT! I had more clashes with Procurement over that than anything else. It was pretty much a weekly discussion.

 

I hate to hear about on the job injuries. I'm a welder and spent most of my career in the Alberta oil and gas industry, both in the field and in the shop. The worst incidents were always a result of rushing, not having mind on task, being complacent or all three combined.

I'm now working in an off-the-tools position on a major hydro-electric project and have volunteered for the joint health and safety committee. I've always found that having frontline workers being involved in safety and leading by example has better results than the safety gestapo sitting in their ivory tower as it were, wagging fingers and lecturing.

 

This is an excellent point, and one of the things I've worked on the hardest. I've told them "Guys, I'm the safety guy...and there's NOBODY who doesn't screw up occasionally. My job isn't to penalize you or HAVE anyone penalize you for making a mistake or what have you. It's simply to figure out how we can best do our jobs to protect you." We go out of our way to ensure that's not the case - in fact, BDE safety guy has cracked down HARD on people who've attempted to do that.

I can say it's paying off; people used to be afraid to tell me stuff. Now they report it ASAP as they've seen me try to help them while protecting them from undue stress and frustration related to placing 'fault.' I mean, someone's already injured and the like - why the hell penalize the sh(t out of them for doing what we're telling them to do? *facepalm*

 

Yeah, that's a complete crock of bullshit and not the reason my current or previous company investigate near losses.

 

I hated that my previous company went with the lowest bidder EPC but in hindsight it didn't matter because the two EPCs my new company works with are no better.

 

Im in Metairie and saw it on the news this morning. Praying for the people hurt. I used to be a process operator for Philips 66 and glad I left that world when I did. I lost count on the amount of “close calls” we had on tanks blowing up and/or fires every other week. PSVs were overlooked and not repaired regularly due to cost. Constantly having crude lines blowing out the seals on valves and fittings due to over pressure on a hot day. The plant was in bad shape when I left in 2014 and it is now being shut down permanently due to catastrophic damage from IDA. It was in such bad shape it’s not even worth making repairs. 900 employees at that plant are losing their jobs. Plant life is dangerous and for anybody that hasn’t done it just cannot grasp what it’s like working in an actual ticking bomb every day.

 

Jesus Christ. I bet you hear that radio in your sleep…. The 3 hours you get every night/day anyway. That’s too many damned hats, man.