Conducting an Accident Investigation
Course 102
Safety Certified Supervisor Series

MODULE 4: ANALYZING THE ACCIDENT PROCESS

Sorting it all out...

We've collected a lot of factual data and it's strewn over the top of your desk. The task now is to turn that data into useful information. We've got to somehow take this data and make some sense of it. It's important to know that we are not just trying to take random facts to identify, or determine the presence of the conditions and behaviors that caused the accident. More importantly, we're conducting a structured "analysis" to determine the unique events that occurred prior to and including the injury event, and what kind of impact each event had on the accident.

Analysis defined

Webster defines analysis as the, "separation of an intellectual or substantial whole into its parts for individual study."

When there is a workplace accident we need to separate or "break down" the accident process, (the whole), into its component parts, (events), for study to determine how they relate to the whole. Since the accident, itself, is the main event, its component "parts" may be thought of as the individual events leading up to and including the main event or the accident. The accident investigator's challenge is to effectively assess and analyze each event to determine if and how it contributed to the accident. To do this we need to make assumptions about what causes accidents.. .why they happen.