One key to avoiding injuries from falls is learning to recognize and control slip and trip hazards. Like many aspects of workplace safety, your attitude and awareness play a large part. When traveling through the workplace, keep a sharp lookout for any obstacle that may lead to a slip or trip. This includes open file drawers, potholes, extension cords, air hoses, tool boxes or other obstacles in our path of travel. When working outdoors, be especially cautious around uneven surfaces, walking on inclines and when traveling along unfinished or temporary walkways such as those on construction sites. In order to notice these types of hazards, you have to watch where you are going. You can’t be reading a report, dialing a cell phone or shouting across the facility to a co-worker and expect to notice any fall hazards at the same time. Safe walking is similar to defensive driving; always travel at a safe speed, make a habit of scanning your path of travel and pay extra attention at intersections or in unfamiliar areas.
TRANSITIONAL AREAS AND CHANGING CONDITIONS
“Never walk or step where your eyes already haven’t been.” This is especially true in transitional areas. For example, when you come inside a building and it’s been raining, one of the first things you do is shake off your coat or your umbrella. You stamp your feet to get rid of the mud and water. Hopefully, this mud and water ends up on the floor mat, but quite often it ends up on the slick tile floor in front of you. This is a transitional area; you’re going from outside to inside, from one walking surface to another. If you’re not careful and don’t take a good look at the floor before you come barrelling into the building, you’re liable to end up on the floor just as well. Not only do you have to be careful when going from outside to inside, you also have to know what conditions you may encounter on the other side of any door or around the next corner. For example, the bathroom floor may be wet and slippery; there may be vehicle fluids on the warehouse floor even with the best of housekeeping practices. To avoid these hazards, you just have to watch where you are going. Also be aware that conditions change. There are countless reasons why a fall hazard may suddenly appear in your path and it only takes a second to look ahead, before you step, to see what you are stepping into.
CORRECTING FALL HAZARDS
What do our actions say when we step over a piece of pipe laying on the floor and we continue walking? It says you don’t care enough about the safety of your co-workers to correct an obviously dangerous situation. A fall hazard left uncorrected is simply a fall postponed, while a fall hazard that is corrected is a fall prevented.
When you see a hazard that may cause a slip or an obstacle that may cause a trip, take the time to correct it if you can do it safely. If you can’t, mark it in some way so your co-workers can see the hazard and contact someone who can correct the situation.
KEEPING YOUR WORK AREA FREE OF FALL HAZARDS
Noticing and correcting unsafe conditions is great, but better yet is performing your job and maintaining your work area in a condition so these fall hazards never exist in the first place. See if you recognize any of these unsafe practices:
- Pulling a welding hose across a walkway, even if it’s just for a short moment, creates a hazard;
- Leaving a drawer open in an office can lead to a trip;
- Allowing materials to overflow into a walkway creates hazardous obstacles;
- A poorly-kept work area turns tools and materials into slip and trip hazards; and,
- Storing items or allowing materials to accumulate on stairs creates a dangerous condition.
No matter what kind of work we do, whether it’s accounting, welding, construction, sheet metal work, assembly line work or heavy maintenance, falls can prevented.
They can be prevented by good housekeeping practices, smart storage techniques and by maintaining an awareness of where we are and
what is going on around us.
“Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask, act! Action will delineate and define you” — Thomas Jefferson