On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City burned, killing 145 workers. It took 18 minutes and 49 workers were burned to death or suffocated by smoke, 36 dead in the elevation shaft and 58 died from jumping to the sidewalks below. 2 more died from their injuries in the days following. (1.)

Ninety years later, The World Trade Center Evacuation Study: Factors associated with initiation and length of time for evacuation: found that 50% of the respondents to the study did not feel confident about exiting their building without directions from fire or security staff. 80% of the sample participants had a history of participating in a fire drill but only 10% reported that had ever actually entered a stairwell as part of the drill and only 6% had ever exited the building as part of a drill.  Earlier the study mentions that the dynamics of high rise evacuation was not well characterized or understood. That fact was understood by the 1993 WTC bombing; when firemen conducted a final sweep through the towers, they found workers still at their desks six hours after the evacuation order was issued.” (2.)

Fire safety has come a long way with advances in material science, building codes and construction, engineering safeguards and evacuation routes and procedures. Still there are instances everywhere around us that could make those efforts useless.

The 2014 Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show typically hosts well over 150,000 attendees. A friend of mine attended last year’s exhibition and sent me this picture. I do not know if there were any people on the other side of the doors of this conference room at that time. All the doors are marked “EMERGENCY EXIT DO NOT BLOCK.”

What would you do if you came across this actual scenario? Are you walking your facility spaces? How often? How do you note and communicate the almost certain changes a facility undergoes? I have known many safety professionals who do not leave their office until an event happens. Fire prevention is the safety professional’s job too. How do you train people to respond to an alarm?

A lot may depend on how reliable the facilities alarms are. If every time a false alarm sounded and your facility conducted a full evacuation it would not be long before the business bottom line is affected. The loss of production coupled with the cost of emergency response teams either company or public response adds up quickly. Earlier this year I was on a conference call with two individuals in another city. We had pretty much wrapped up the conversation when the fire alarm in their building began. Their response was to ignore it because according to both, “this happens all the time”.

 In many cases today people consciously make a decision whether or not the alarm is actual prior to evacuation. I am not that different. The smoke alarm in my home will activate when I overcook a meal. My neighbor’s car alarm activates every time a delivery truck passes without fail. Truthfully, when was the last time anyone paid much attention to a car alarm? While I understand their reluctance to leave, I urged them to do so. It was most likely because two months prior a hotel I was staying at had both the audible and visual alarms sounding.  Since I could not smell smoke what really motivated me was firemen equipment arriving on scene. From now on I walk down every motel exit, counting steps to the nearest, carry a small flashlight and will not make the mistake of failing to respond again.

Every person on every job site should be trained and equipped to recognize and appropriately respond to alarms. The safety professional should insist that evacuation training is conducted with participation drills, route designations, procedures communicated, vulnerabilities identified, and accountability measures are in place and at a minimum updated annually. AND WALK YOUR SPACES!

Critical factors in alarm training and response include building knowledge, shelter in place procedures, evacuation procedures, muster area designations, disabled employee contingency plans, and personnel accountability. Personnel accountability is critical because the last thing anyone wants is emergency responders re-entering a facility looking for someone who is not there.

(1)    http://www.history.com/topics/triangle-shirtwaist-fire

(2)    The World Trade Center evacuation study: Factors associated with initiation and length of time for evacuation.Robyn R. M. Gershon1,∗,†,‡, Lori A. Magda1,§ , Halley E. M. Riley1,¶and Martin F. Sherman2, Copyright _ 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries released August 2013 reports a preliminary total of 4,383 fatal work injuries recorded in the United States in 2012, which is down from a revised count of 4,693 fatal work injuries in 2011.

As an apprentice sheet metal worker it seemed common knowledge that you were going to get cut, electricians were going to get shocked, iron workers would fall and welders would get burned. Are we destined to have fatalities in the workforce?

I was reading a book about the construction of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and the installation of a safety net. It was called the most effective safety device to bridge building and did save many lives. It also added to the number of men falling -- because they worked with freer abandon, knowing there was a net below.

I wonder if there are safety tools used today that exemplify the law of unintended consequences. In our desire to prevent injury have we created the opposite effect?

I have a 3-part series on workplace fatalities here:
Part 1
Part 2

Here is an easy tool to utilize and pass on to workers today. It doesn’t require a great deal of training and fits perfectly within any safety system an organization has. It is called STAR, stop, think, act, and review. To STAR a job, process, or task is to perform a quick and simple assessment of what the task is, the safety process in place, doing the actual task and a post job review. Think of a basketball player performing a free throw. He takes a breath, lines up his feet, puts his eyes on the target and then shoots at the goal. If he is successful he repeats. If he misses, a quick review will necessitate some corrections. 

Let’s take a task most are familiar with. You have a flat tire on the highway. To get where you are going, this problem needs immediate attention. So, instead of jumping into the task, STAR the task. First Stop. Then, Think. Is the car out of traffic, do you have the necessary tools and knowledge, and can this tire change be performed safely?  With those questions answered, Act. Perform the tire change. Once the task has been completed, Review. What about the task went well? What would you change next time, if anything? How might the task be done differently and what lessons learned would you pass on?

This simple tool, STAR can be applied to the simplest and most complex tasks both on the job and off. It is an easy to remember and an effective tool.

What is your first reaction to the sight of a worker performing a task that puts the worker, or the public, at risk of an injury? It is natural to want to prevent injuries and there is nothing wrong with that.

However just stopping the job, even if the worker agrees, may have lasting negative effects. Indeed it could actually cause the behavior to go underground or perform that task while no one is watching.

When I was a young man working construction, I was instructed to drop my tools, stay off ladders, and make myself scarce because OSHA was on-site. The thought was that they were only here to look for and penalize  workers for getting the job done. No worker, no fine.

This type of “on the job training” indicates a system that underlies, encourages, and supports at-risk behaviors. In some cases these systems can be subtle and difficult to discover. 

I have written a series of articles on workplace safety:
Part 1
Part 2