Incident Investigation

An accident is an undesired event that results in personal injury or property damage, an incident that adversely affects completion of a task. ‘Near misses’ describe incidents where no property was damaged and no personal injury sustained, but where, given a slight shift in time or position, damage and injury easily could have occurred.

If the safety professional can identify, analyze and fix the unsafe behaviors and conditions behind a near miss, they can prevent incidents.

Each company should have its own emergency action plan, and key personnel should know how to activate it, and also know proper response procedures and protocols. Every employee should understand their role in an emergency.

The purpose of this lesson is to familiarize employees with the common procedures of conducting an incident investigation, specifically an incident involving an injury. The crux of why incident investigation is critical is to implement corrective actions to prevent further incidents.