The Supervisors Role in Accident Investigations

All witnesses and potential witnesses should be interviewed. Witnesses may include not only what team members saw, but also what they heard and when they heard it. If an unsafe act contributed to the incident, you may find no witnesses come forward, even though someone probably was an eyewitness. Sometimes a less formal approach will yield more valuable information, especially with an unwilling witness. 

Any information that helps give a clear picture of an incident occurrence is important. Accurate eye- or ear-witness knowledge regarding accident occurrences should be accepted from any reliable source. This is the case even when the source may not be as cooperative as one would like. If the knowledge is believed to be accurate and useful, it should be used in the investigation even if the information comes without the benefit of a signed statement. 

As the reader can surmise, the fishbowl was not necessarily the best place to conduct interviews. Besides being considered far from private, it 

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