Accidents domino theory

For accident mechanism theory, many domestic and foreign scholars and experts have done much research and put forward a lot of typical accident theory. Such as Domino accident model theory proposed by Heinrich in 1936, Energy transfer accident theory proposed by Gibson in 1961, then derived by Haddon in 1966, Gold mine accident model proposed by Lawrence in 1974, and so on. In domestic, Chen Baozhi put forward the two class of hazard point in 1995, Zhang Li put forward Human error accident model in Complex man-machine system in 1996, He Xueqiu put forward... 

Inspired by the domino theory, the accident chain effects (also called domino effect) are getting people s attention many scholars in their various hteratures give a different definition. 

The origin of the Domino Theory is credited to Herbert W. Heinrich, circa 1931, who worked for Travelers Insurance. Mr. Heinrich nndertook an analysis of 75,000 accident reports by companies insnred with Travelers. This resulted in the research report titled The Origins of Accidents, which concluded that 88 percent of all accidents are caused by the unsafe acts of persons, 10 percent by unsafe physical conditions, and 2 percent are Acts of God. His analysis of 50,000 accidents showed that, in the average case, an accident resulting in the occurrence of a lost-time work injury was preceded by 329 similar accidents caused by the same unsafe act or mechanical exposure, 300 of which produced no injury and 29 resulted in minor injuries. This is sometimes referred to as Heinrich s Law. Mr. Heinrich then defined the five factors in the accident sequence, which he identified as the Domino Theory. Heinrich s work is the basis for the theory of behavior-based safety, which holds that as many as 95 percent of all workplace incidents are caused by unsafe acts. See also Accident Chain Behavior-Based Safety. 

Accident causation theories include the human factors theory, the domino theory, the systems theory, the combination theory, the epidemiological theory, and the accident/inddent theory [1,2]. The first two of these theories are described below. 

Heinrich produced some early thinking about accident prevention. He recognized the importance of unsafe acts and conditions and created a theory called the Domino Theory because Heinrich used a row of dominos to illustrate his theory. The theory states that an accident sequence is like a series of five dominos standing on end. One falling can knock the others over. The five dominos in reverse sequence are (1) an injury caused by (2) an accident, which, in turn, is caused by (3) unsafe acts or conditions. Causes for the latter are (4) undesirable traits (such as recklessness, nervousness, violent... 

Heinrich relied on some of these theories to form his Domino Theory of accident causation. See Chapter 3. Today, other methods describe how leaders impact work-related behavior and accident prevention. 

There are several domino theories of accident causation. While each domino theory presents a different explanation for the cause of accidents, they all have one thing in common. All domino theories are divided into three phases ... 

Postcontact phase refers to the results of the accident or energy exposure. Physical injury, illness, production downtime, damage to equipment and/or facility, and loss of reputation are just some of the possible results that can occur during the postcontact phase of the domino theory. 

Domino theories represent accidents as predictable chronological sequences of events or causal factors. Each causal factor builds on and affects the others. If allowed to exist without any form of intervention, these hazards will interact to produce the accident. In domino games, where the pieces are lined up and the first one is knocked over, the first domino sets into motion a chain reaction of events resulting in the toppling of the remaining dominos. In just that same way, accidents, according to the domino theories, will result if the sequence of precontact phase causes is not interrupted. 

H. W. Heinrich developed the original domino theory of accident causation in the late 1920s. Although written decades ago, his work in accident causation is still the basis for several contemporary theories. 

The two key points in Heinrich s domino theory are that (1) injuries are caused by the action of preceding factors, and (2) removal of the events leading up to the incident, especially employee unsafe acts or hazardous workplace conditions, prevents accidents and injuries. Heinrich believed that unsafe acts caused more accidents than unsafe conditions. Therefore, his philosophy of accident prevention focused on eliminating unsafe acts and the people-related factors that lead to injuries (Brauer, 1990). 

Figure 5-2. An illustration of Heinrich s Domino Theory of Accident Causation.

Manuele (1997a) believes the domino theories are too simplistic. He proposes the term unsrrfe act also be eliminated. He suggests the chief culprits in accident causation are less-than-adequate safety policies, standards, and procedures and inadequate implementation accountability systems. Manuele attempts to pull different causation theories together into one working theory. His approach also incorporates some of the following ideas. 

The first steps in being able to prevent accidents from propagating is to understand the combination of factors that can initiate them, and what causes them to escalate [Ontario 1999]. The generally accepted theories of accident causation, for example Heinrich s domino theory [Heinrich 1931] and Reason s organisational accident theory [Reason 1997] may use different terminology, but they do all have common themes ... 

The Domino Theory attributed to Heinrich is based on the theory that a chain or sequence of events can be listed in chronological order to show the events leading up to an accident ... 

Petersen has compared and contrasted both theories and gives an example which illustrates the comparative narrowness of the domino theory in relation to the multicausality theory and concludes that this has severely limited the identification and control of the underlying causes of accidents. 

Whilst there is little basically wrong with the domino theory introdueed by Heimich, there is however a need to apply a wider interpretation of its applieation, which has justifiably been criticized as being too narrow. For instance, when we identify an act and/or a condition that caused the accident in the investigation procedures of today, how mai other causes are we leaving unmentioned When we remove the unsafe condition that we identify in our inspection, have we really dealt with the cause of the potential accident ... 

Let us briefly look at the contrast between the multiple causation theory and om too rarrow interpretation of the domino theory. We shah look at a common accident a person falls off a stepladder. If we inveshgate this accident using some cmrent accident investigahon forms, we are asked to idenhfy one act or one condihon ... 

This would be typical of a supervisor s inveshgation of this accident imder the domino theory. 

Bird and Loftus extended the domino theory in 1976 to reflect the irrfluence of management in the cause and effect of all accidents which result in a waste of comparty assets. The modified sequence of events becomes ... 

In 1986, Frank Bird and George Germain [1] used Heinrich s [4] model to develop another accident causation model (Figure 12-8). This model used the same domino theory to show its key concepts of loss control. 

Figure 12-8 The domino theory loss causation accident sequence model. Cox. Sue. Tom Cox, Safety Systems and People, Figure 3.2 (adapted from Bird and Loftus, 1931), p. 52, Butterworth-Heinemann, 1996. Modified with permission.

The domino theory of injuries listed five steps that lead to injury. In was first the environmental and social climate and ancestry that allowed the second step of human error to develop. This error in turn led to unsafe acts or mechanical and physical hazards. These acts or hazards then allowed an accident to occur, and then some accidents produced injury. Undesirable human traits such as nervousness were either inherited or created and exacerbated by their environment. These traits created human faults that then allowed unsafe acts such as not wearing protective gloves, or even engineered oversight of the need for machine guarding (Heinrich et al., 1980). Dr. Haddon was removing the fifth step of injury occurrence. Today s efforts of ergonomic control also attempt to remove the possibility of an error as well. 

The Domino Theory provides a succinct description of how the organisational aspects of accident and incident causes link with individual losses, and how hiunan errors can be the result of organisational arrangements. Familiarity with this theory and its variants will help the interviewer avoid too narrow a concentration on the role of the injured person to the exclusion of broader organisational issues. 

In 1931, H.W. Heinrich published Industrial Accident Prevention. This work outlined his domino theory of accident prevention. Heinrich identified five factors that result in injury, and likened them... 

The simplest types of accident models for use in the design of SHE Information Systems are the causal-sequence models. An early and historically very important example is the Chain of Multiple Events or Domino theory . Figure 5.1. In this model, an accident is described as a chain of conditions and events that culminate in an injury. A link in this chain is an unsafe act or unsafe condition at the workplace. It is suggested that accidents be prevented through the reduction of unsafe acts and conditions. 

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