Filling Out Accident Reports

Determining the cause of the accident, contributing factors, direct and indirect causes, getting information from people, conducting successful interviews, and filling out accident reports. 

The majority of staff had become involved in the event of an accident. This was especially so for supervisors who were the most likely to be informed immediately an accident occurred. They may have been called upon to administer first aid and would have been expected to fill out accident report forms. Managers tended to be directly involved if they were called upon to lead an inquiry following a serious accident. Other than this their involvement was... 

Proper training on the correct use and proper way to fill out accident reports is also critical. Employees should not be expected to know how to fill out these forms without training. Information included on the form should be as clear, concise. 

If the time frame is not met, this failure should be brought to the attention of a supervisor or human resources staff member for counseling or other action. This might be a consideration at salary review time. Above all, people filling out accident reports must understand the importance of these reports and that timely and complete reporting is something the company cares about. They should also understand that failure to submit a timely report will have consequences. 

Recall from Chapter 2 the discussion on theory X and Y. There are still many supervisors employed today who are the typical theory X supervisor or manager. Caution must be exercised to ensure that these types of reports are used for accident-prevention purposes and not fault finding. Getting people used to filling out these reports takes time and determination. The format used in these report forms should be worded so that prevention is the key word. 

For a coalmine accident causing less than three deaths, the accident investigation is organized by the chief of regional inspectorate. Immediately upon receipt of the accident report, the chief shall select appropriate members to form a capable accident investigation team, and appoint a team. The team shall as soon as practical collect and fill out a brief initial report of the accident, and within 72 hours report to the head of Coalmine Safety and Health Department [PENG Cheng 2001]. 

If there is an immediate threat to human life, employees should immediately call emergency responders (911 or an equivalent number) if the plant has trained emergency response personnel. An accident report form must be filled out within 24 h of the incident. It is critical to capture as much information as possible about events leading up to the accident. Prompt and factual reporting of accidents facilitates accident investigation and acquisition of necessary information that will eventually go into the system safety analyses and be incorporated into the company SMS. If the accident is serious, an investigation board should be set up immediately. All accidents should be investigated. 

A documentary analysis was carried out to investigate accident scenarios from both a retrospective and a predictive point of view. In this study, data from cases, published incident reports from the oil and gas industries, were used to first clarify the concept of an accident scenario and then identify the causes of accidents in this sector. Also, risk analyses which have been conducted by researchers and have been documented in this scope were used to fill out the scenarios. 

Identifying the direct cause of an accident is optional because it is not necessary to complete a causal factor analysis. However, the direct cause should be identified when it facilitates understanding of why the accident occurred, and it is useful in developing lessons learned fiom the accident. The direct cause is also used when writing up the accident report and filling out an accident report form. 

A driver is also supposed to fill out a preliminary accident report while at the scene once everything is secured. This report is used to gather all information about everyone involved in the accident and any eyewitnesses. A driver must record the time, place, and road and weather conditions and provide a short description of what happened, which can be discussed later in case of lawsuits and other actions. If a camera is available, a driver should take photographs of the scene to give the insurance company an idea of what took place when it reviews data at a later time. A driver must not sign anything or make any statements unless it is to the police, his or her company, or the insurance company. 

The format used to report first-aid cases or incidents can be similar to an accident report or can be a separate form. I recommend that your organization develop the form for these types of incidents in-house. Getting input from the people who will be filling out these forms for their development will likely increase the likelihood that they actually get filled out. The first-aid logs can resemble the OSHA 300 log. Any injury that resulted in a Band-aid, ice, a wrap, or medical treatment that is not considered to be recordable would be included on the first-aid log. The name or other identifier of the victim would be included, along with a brief description of the accident, treatment, status, and so on. 

Individual accident reports, sometimes referred to as Form 45s, employee accidents reports, or supervisor accident reports, should be filled out for every accident. Each state typically has workers compensation guidelines that require reporting any work-related injury within a certain time frame. If your organization has not been keeping these records, you can expect a variety of things to happen. First, you will probably get bills from hospital emergency rooms for treatment for... 

Records for more than 30 vehicular accidents were included in this study. Initially, the study was to include 100 vehicles however, after reviewing the reports, it was determined that many of the reports were filled out incompletely and did not contain adequate information to contribute to the study. 

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