A much-needed shift is underway in the safety field related to how success is measured and what must occur to prevent catastrophic, life-altering, or fatal incidents in the construction industry.

Since the inception of the safety profession, a fundamental cornerstone of the theory of accidents was based on Herbert William Heinrich’s Safety Triangle (HST) theory: For every accident that causes a major injury, there are 29 accidents that cause minor injuries and 300 accidents that cause no injury.¹ (See Exhibit 1.)

Moreover, it was believed that since many accidents share common root causes, addressing more commonplace incidents that do not result in injuries actually prevents those that do cause injuries. Heinrich’s research suggested that 88% of all workplace accidents are caused by unsafe acts, which became the basis for the popular Behavior Based Safety.

Interestingly, over the past five years, safety and operational leaders have noticed an alarming trend. In spite of best safety efforts, the number of serious injury and fatality (SIF) events have increased while less serious injuries have decreased. This pattern can be seen across many industries, at company and national levels, and has called into question some of the fundamental scientific assumptions related to safety.

Although time, resources, and effort have been spent to improve safety, the number of devastating incidents resulting in death and life-altering injury continues to rise. In the construction industry, a fatal work injury rate of 9.8 (per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers) was reported for 2014 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics.²

This new paradigm states that the top of Heinrich’s triangle will not be impacted by attempting to prevent all accidents at the bottom of the triangle. In other words, eliminating the accidents that do not result in injury will not reduce SIFs. In fact, the causes of SIFs are different from the causes of non-SIFs, and the old way of investigating accidents will not prevent SIFs.

The New SIF Prevention Model

SIF precursors are actually high-risk situations where management controls are often absent, ineffective, or are simply not complied with and, if allowed to continue, will result in a SIF.

How is this shift accomplished? What must a progressive organization do to implement change? These questions are at the forefront of safety professionals’ minds.

Larry Simmons, a leading expert on SIF from PotashCorp, has devoted his life’s work to preventing SIFs in the workplace. Patricia Kagerer, Risk Management Executive at ACIG, sat down with Larry to discuss the cultural shift necessary to influence change that will ultimately save lives.

Kagerer: In your view, what is a SIF?

Simmons: A SIF identifies a life-threatening or life-altering work related injury or illness.

A life-threatening injury or illness refers to one that, if not immediately addressed, is likely to lead to the death of the affected individual and usually requires internal and/or external emergency response intervention to provide life-sustaining support. Examples include:

• A laceration or crushing injury that results in significant blood loss
• An injury involving damage to the brain or spinal cord
• An event that requires application of cardiopulmonary resuscitation or an external defibrillator
• Chest or abdominal trauma affecting vital organs
• A serious burn

A life-altering injury or illness results in permanent or long-term impairment or loss of use of an internal organ, body function, or body part, such as:

• A significant head injury
• A spinal cord injury
• Paralysis
• An amputation
• Broken or fractured bones
• A serious burn

For example, if a head injury resulted in blindness, then it would be life-altering and permanent.