Accident protocol

Most safety guides emphasize hazard identification and accident prevention. When prevention has failed, personnel must be familiar with the laboratory CHP and RPP accident protocols and the emergency plans described in Section 14.5.2. These plans instruct the worker about what to do and whom to notify. This information includes the facility evacuation routes. Qualified personnel must be prepared to use the accident response equipment placed in the laboratory to ameliorate an accident situation or to aid in treating the injured. Examples of this equipment include fire extinguishers, eyewash stations and safety showers. 

Note The OSHA regulations do not prescribe a specific order of operations in an emergency, in recognition of the differences among laboratories considerations of location, accessibility and institutional protocol must be addressed in determining a plan. The above recommendations, generally accepted among university CHPs, are published online, but are not a substitute for familiarity with the accident protocol in one s own laboratory. 

For incidents involving radioactive materials or other highly contaminating substances that are not volatile, utilize the hospital s radiation accident protocol, which will generally include the following a. Restricted access zones. 

Time-variable conditions have been postulated by different authors as salient contributing factors to accidents. Robke (1974) analysed time-dependent factors of attention by exploring accident protocols of injured persons. Those factors involved short-time varying cycles of attentiveness as well as longtime varying, reversible changes. The results confirmed Mittenecker s hypothesis that time-dependent variables are valid factors for accident involvement, and that sometimes they have more predictive power than time-... 

Alteplase Administration Protocol for Cerebrovascular Accident Indication... 

With the developed concepts, a number of field experiments were conducted in the chemical process industry. A first experiment was carried out in a small company in The Netherlands. From this first trial, it was evident that the concepts of precursors, the model of the organisational control process and the structure of these concepts had to be adapted to obtain better and more reliable results. The improvements led to the development of a structured protocol of seven clearly defined stages. By applying this 7-stage protocol to the data of the small company, safety risks could pro-actively be identified and the accidents which the company had already experienced, could be explained. 

To verify the developed concepts underlying the structured 7-stage protocol in a reactive way, they were applied to an analysis of recent accidents in the Dutch chemical process industry. Despite the limitations in the information available from the accident database, it could be deduced that all accidents were preceded by precursors, and even that similar precursors had led to similar accidents, implying that companies had failed to learn from these re-occurring deviations which were in fact pre-warning signs of impeding accidents. 

Moreover, while analysing the accidents and their precursors it was shown that often accidents are inadvertently caused by the higher control levels (i.e. the tactical and strategic level) in organizations, as had already been observed in the first experiment of the small company. The second experiment reconfirmed the strength of the developed 7-stage protocol. 

The main purpose of this research is to design a protocol which provides companies in the chemical process industry with a better understanding of possible indicators of an accident, to enable them to further enhance their Safety Management Systems (SMS). 

Other, often made distinction in types of research, are between exploration, description, explanation, and testing, van der Zwaan (Zwaan van der, 1990). Exploration is conducted when theoretical knowledge in literature lacks information on which variables are important. Description types of research aim at the relevance of the variables. Explanation types of research aim at identifying the causal links between variables and phenomena. Finally, testing types of research aim at proving the hypotheses derived from the causal links. The research project discussed in this thesis is mainly explorative in nature. The emphasis is to design concepts and a protocol, which increases the understanding of the problem of how and why accidents continue to occur in companies in the chemical process industry. In this way a contribution to the solution of the problem will be made and consequently this research can be typified as applied positivistic exploratory research. 

Show the (root)causes (technical, human, organizational) of the operational deviations leading to the accident. For example by classifying the (root)causes using the 7-stage protocol or other existing method. 

Using the 7-stage protocol, the previous accidents can be explained and causal weaknesses in the safety management system of the company can be identified, i.e. the identified latent conditions on the tactical and operational control levels. To test the working of the developed protocol further, in the next Chapter practice will be approached from hindsight to verify whether other accidents can also be explained. If this is a success, practice will be approached pro-actively. 

In this Chapter further evidence is provided that precursors exist long before they escalate into an accident. It will be demonstrated that the existence of precursor information could have been used to foresee and even prevent recent accidents with hazardous substances. Moreover, a set of precursors retrieved from 17 recent accidents in the Dutch chemical process industry is used to validate the 7-stage protocol developed in the previous Chapter. In spite of the limited accident information it is shown that if a proper control action had been initiated, all of these 17 accidents could have been prevented. 

The results from the study into identical accidents show that precursors often do exist prior to accidents. The existence of precursors prior to accidents creates the opportunity to derive indicators for accidents. To actually obtain a better understanding of how and why accidents can occur in spite of the presence of precursors prior to accidents, in the next Section 17 recent accidents from the Dutch chemical process industry will be analysed using the 7-stage protocol. 

That precursors are frequently observed in accident trajectories was stated in the previous Section. In this Section 17 recent accidents in the Dutch chemical process industry are taken and their accompanying precursors and ineffective control processes in the companies identified. This study is executed from hindsight using limited accident information which is the reason for adapting the analysis protocol so that the results of most stages can still be retrieved. 

The 7-stage protocol proposed in Chapter 5 is developed to pro-actively analyse a company. However, in this Chapter, the analysis of previous accidents takes place from hindsight using limited information. Due to this retrospective analysis and the limited information, the developed 7-stage protocol has to be adapted. The following modifications and the reasons for them are stated below ... 

The protocol requires information which is not present in the accident database in sufficient detail. Often detailed information concerning the organization s normal way of working prior to the accident must be retrieved from the accident information itself. This type of information is often not recorded, or only briefly mentioned in the accident investigation reports. However, the 7-stage protocol can still be used to retrieve insights into how and why accidents still occur. 

The modified protocol is described below, starting with identifying precursors from the accident trajectory. When precursors can be identified in the accident trajectory, they become subject of analysis, as stated in Stage 4 of the protocol. The elements on... 

The protocol developed in Chapter 5, which was applied on accidents as shown in Chapter 6, is applied on three cases in the Dutch chemical process industry. First, the cases are selected according the criteria stated in Chapter 5. Secondly, the developed protocol of analysis is applied on these selected cases, to identify why and how it is still possible that accidents may occur despite precursors and several existing safety barriers. Thirdly, the results from the analysis are further elaborated on, indicating the problems in current safety management systems, allowing accidents to occur. 

In the previous Chapter it was shown that the developed protocol for analysis identified the ineffective control elements causing the precursors prior to accidents. However, due to the lack of detailed accident information the conclusions were limited. To perform the analysis, using the developed 7-stage protocol pro-actively (before any accident occurs), cases have to be selected on which the analysis can be performed and from which reliable and generic conclusions about safety indicators and the performance of current safety management systems can be obtained. The next sub-Section will discuss the selection criteria to select suitable cases. 

This second edition features in-depth coverage of actual response techniques and new approaches for coping with critical situations caused by criminal activity, industrial accidents, or even mini-epidemics. Augmenting its coverage of field first aid for response personnel, this edition contains up-to-date tools such as checklists and streamlined procedures for on-scene coordination. It incorporates the latest detection devices, cost/recovery and hazard analyses, diagnostic methods, pretreatments, vaccines, decontamination techniques, antidotes, and medical treatments available. This edition also adds a focused review of the progress and projected developments for military protocols and procedures. 

Despite numerous safety protocols that are in place and the care taken to avoid environmental incidents (EPA, 2004), virtually every industry suffers accidents that lead to environmental problems, complexities, and chemical contamination. The petroleum industry is no exception to such accidents. It is therefore helpfnl to be aware of the nature of the raw material and the products arising therefrom, in order to understand the nature of any contamination and thns the best cleannp methods to choose. 

Before beginning a new experiment, check the safety-related issues of the protocol as well as the chemicals involved. Take note of precautionary measures in case of accidents. Presumably all chemicals are harmful. 

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