Near Misses: What is your definition of a near miss?
To me, it is kind of self-explanatory – a near miss… it is something that has occurred or taken place that could have caused damage, bodily harm or otherwise, but for some reason it didn’t…
We have many of these incidents in a day, if we really think about it – a missed step but you didn’t fall up or down the stairs, someone cut you off, but you didn’t get into a car accident because you avoided it by braking or swerving, etc.
If we really stopped to look at our day to day life, we would see that we actually have a lot of near misses.
A near miss is a reminder that something worse could have happened but didn’t and now we have the opportunity to use that near miss and take pointers from it and make things safer or better, so that it doesn’t happen again or at least do what we can to limit it from happening to us or someone else.
That is why it is important to notice these near misses in the workplace. If we take the time to do the proper documentation and work through the process, we could possibly eliminate that near miss for someone else that could end in a worse situation than a near miss – it could actually end up being an incident or accident for the next person.
Doing your due diligence in this matter is very important. Take the time to record these things and be part of the solution for making sure it doesn’t happen to the next person. The process and documentation may take time, but it is definitely worth the time and effort, especially if it saves someone else from getting injured or worse.
Questions to Ponder:
What near misses do you come across in a day, a week or a month?
Have you taken the time to let others know and see if there can be a solution to rectify the situation?
Has someone ever gotten hurt because of something you knew existed but chose not to do anything about?
Take the necessary initiative, and you will be glad you did!
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