Accident/Incident/Near Miss Investigation

One of the best ways to avoid further accidents is to understand how an accident occurred and how to avoid that type of accident in the future. The accident investigation is a tool. The goal is not to lay blame.
The goal in an accident investigation is to:

• Satisfy legal requirements (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health?NIOSH, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration?OSHA)
• Rethink the safety hazard.
• Introduce ways to prevent a reoccurrence
• Establish training needs.

An accident, a near miss and an incident should all be investigated.

• Accident investigations are a tool for uncovering hazards that either were missed earlier or require new controls (policies, procedures or personal protective equipment).
• Near-miss reporting and investigation identify and control safety or health hazards before they cause a more serious incident.
• Incident investigations should focus on prevention.

ACCIDENT — an undesired event or sequence of events causing injury, ill-health or property damage.
NEAR MISS — near misses describe incidents where, given a slight shift in time or distance, injury, ill-health or damage easily could have occurred, but didn?t this round.
INCIDENT — an incident is an unplanned, undesired event that hinders completion of a task and may cause injury or other damage.

Recommendations

• Conduct an investigation as soon as possible following the event to gather all the necessary facts, determine the true causes of the event, and develop recommendations to prevent a recurrence.
• Get there as quickly as possible.
• Ensure area is safe to enter.
• Make sure injured person has first-aid or medical attention required.
• Look for witnesses.
• Record the scene with photos (ideally date and time printed) or sketches.
• Safeguard any evidence.
• Establish what happened.

Equipment that may come in handy:

• Pens and notebook
• Measuring tape
• Specimen containers
• Camera and film
• Tape recorder and cassettes
• Copies of accident report forms, checklists
• Telephone numbers
• Personal protective equipment

Investigate

The investigation should answer six questions:

• Who?
• What?
• When?
• Where?
• Why?
• How?

Interview

Interview all people involved. Look for all the causes. Do not fall into the trap of blaming the employee or volunteer, even if the person admits causing the event. Investigate the procedures, supervisor's directives, training, machinery, weather, you get the idea. The organization's accident, incident and near-miss reporting forms will give guidance.

Document

Properly document all accident investigations using the organization's approved investigation form. The form should make it simple to remember what questions to ask, be easy to understand and complete, and be filed and retained in chronological order.

Protect Privacy

Investigation reports are not to be released to anyone without authorization.