Accidents near hits/misses

An LTI is a lost time incident, mentioned earlier as an accident which causes one or more days away from work. A non-LTI injury does not result in time away from work. A near hit (often called a near miss) is an incident which causes no injury, but had the potential to do so (e.g. a falling object hitting the ground, but missing personnel). An example of an unsafe act would be a poorly secured ladder, where no incident occurs, but which potentially could have been the cause of an incident. 

This chapter describes near misses, discusses their importance, and presents the latest methods for getting near misses reported and investigated. The term near miss has a long history of use, but the terms near hit or close call more closely describe what actually happens. The term near miss is used throughout this book since it is so widely accepted as the term for incidents that are direct precursors to accidents. 

Terminology used to describe an event that had the potential to result in an incident, but where no such event occurred. Sometimes is referred to as a Near Accident. These may include events where injury or property damage could have occurred but did not events where a major safety system failed to perform as designed, e.g., fire pump auto start malfunction or events where potential environmental damage could result. The term is actually considered a technical misnomer by some, since the technical accuracy would to refer to such an event as a near hit or near occurrence, i.e., an incident that nearly occurred, rather than an incident that nearly missed. 

Most near miss incidents aren t investigated becanse a loss did not occur. They have often been called near hits, near misses, or near accidents, as they are warnings of potential accidents. 

An incident log is another useful tool for accident prevention. These are sometimes referred to as near misses or near hits. I prefer the term close call. An incident log may also be used to record failures or losses that did not result in an injury but could have. 

The text of the standard contained a section about the importance of reporting near misses (precursors to accidents). In order to encourage reporting, examples of near-misses were given, with the classification of a near-miss, in general, being one class less than the corresponding hit . 

If you have only a few accidents and incidents, you might want to move down one step to examine near misses and first aid-related cases. It is only a matter of luck or timing that separates the near miss or first-aid event from becoming a serious, recordable, or reportable event. The truth is you probably have been lucky by seconds or inches. (A second later and a tool would have hit someone or an inch more and it would have cut off a finger.) Truly, it pays dividends to take time to investigate accidents and incidents occurring in the workplace. 

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