Many of us know about the Incident Pyramid already, but some of the newer employees may not. This pyramid is nothing more than a representation of the statistics about injuries. Year after year, industry after industry, injuries statistically fall into this pyramid.
Near Misses & Unsafe Acts are the bottom of the pyramid. There are thousands of these. These are things such as not wearing your seat-belt on a forklift. Not putting your machine in ESP while clearing a jam, not wearing cut resistant gloves while putting on a cutting die or changing cutting blades.
Next up are Recordable Injuries. These are injuries that require more than basic first aid. The injury may require a prescription anti-biotic, physical therapy, a few sutures and things that are above and beyond first aid treatment. For all the thousands of near misses and unsafe acts, sooner or later it will result in an injury that requires this type of treatment. Incident Pyramid
Next up are Life Changing Serious Injuries. For every 600 recordable injuries statistically, year after year, industry after industry, there will be 30 life changing injuries. That is 5%. These are injuries such as amputations, major surgeries, broken bones and the like. These types of injuries will change your life and those who depend on you. And finally at the top there is a Fatal Injury. For every 30 life changing injuries, there will be one fatal injury. So what does this mean? We need to work on the unsafe acts and the near misses at the base of the pyramid. If you can reduce or eliminate those, then you can stop the cascade effect that comes with injuries to begin with. To eliminate the recordable and life changing injuries you need to reduce the near misses and unsafe acts. The only way to stop it is to eliminate the unsafe acts and near misses.