Incident/ Accident Reporting, Investigation and Analysis

Definitions

• Accident: A happening or event that is not expected, foreseen, or intended that results in harm to people, damage to property, or loss to process or environment.
• Near Miss Incident: An undesired event or outcome, which under slightly different circumstances could have resulted in an accident.
• Reportable accident: Any work-related accident resulting in an injury that does not result in death, permanent impairment, or temporary total disability, but which requires medical treatment and must be reported to the relevant authority.
• Full-time Equivalent (FTE): one full-time equivalent refers to one person working 40 hours a week for 50 weeks in a year (or 2000 hrs).
• Lost Time Injury (LTI): A work-related injury or illness, including fatalities, which results in loss of time from scheduled work activity beyond the date of the accident, or results in a return to work with temporary restrictions to regularly assigned duties.
• Frequency Rate (FR): Is the number of lost time injuries in a given period per number of full-time equivalents based on 100 FTE..
• Injury Severity Rate (ISR): This is the number of Lost days due to lost time injuries in a given period per number of full-time equivalents on the basis of 100 FTEs.
• Major injuries: One that keeps the worker from normal routines for which he/she was employed for at least one or more consecutive days.
• Minor injuries: These are injuries that can immediately be treated and it heals without affecting the worker’s ability to perform their roles at the workplace.
• Serious injuries: These are injuries that result in fractures and keep the worker from normal routines for which he/she was employed for at least one or more consecutive days.

Procedure

Procedure for accidents involving company employees on-site

1. When a Company employee is involved in any incident within the company premises, regardless of the magnitude, while working or operating a machine he/she stops the equipment and hands it over to the colleague or the Supervisor or Team Leader, if possible.
2. He/She reports or summons the nearest first Aider.  First Aid is administered as per the First Aid procedure as specified in the Injury and illness prevention manual.
3. Incase the injury requires more than the first aid service provided, that is, a reportable injury, the employee informs his/her supervisor before going to the contracted medical centre, otherwise, the  employee resumes work after the first aid.
4. The first Aider then fills the medical form which she/he presents to the contracted medical centre.
5. If the incident takes place at night, the victim is taken to company contracted medical centre with the emergency vehicle available at the premises by the Supervisor and or First Aider.
6. Injuries reported to the Health and Safety Representative or the designated alternative in each Department are tracked on the form for recording incidents (Safety Observation Forms)  which includes details of the employee and a description of the incident leading to the injury.
7. If the employee goes to the Company contracted medical centre and is given some days off duty as a result of the injury, the Doctor records them on the same form.
8. The EHS officer reports the number of accidents that have occurred in the weekly EHS Meetings.
9. Accidents investigation is conducted using the ‘Safety Observation form’  by the First Aider together with the EHS Officers, the incident takes into consideration the general causes, unsafe acts, unsafe conditions, personal factors and job factors by interviewing the injured personnel and people who were present at the time of the accident.
10. After finding out the causes of the incident, the EHS Officers and the EHS Manager identify the appropriate control measures applicable to the situation to prevent recurrence of the same. These control measures include personal factors and job factors.
11. Follow-up actions are then put in place to indicate how the control measures will be implemented including the closure dates and the responsible personnel.
12. The Department Head ensures that actions from the investigation report are implemented.
13. Actions requiring budgets to be drawn and those involving purchases or bearing immediate and serious safety, health, and environmental consequences are transferred into the company’s continual improvement program tracking. The status of action closures is reviewed by management during the weekly EHS meeting. 
14. The EHS Manager calculates the Injury Severity Rate, Frequency Rates and summaries of the number of accidents and the lost days for management review.

Procedure for accidents involving company employees off-site

• When a permanent company employee or Casual employee off duty is involved in an accident away from the Company premises, he/she goes to the nearby medical center.
• In case, the incident is a reportable injury or a Disabling Injury, the employee is transferred to a company-contracted medical center or facility for further treatment.
• The employee then notifies his respective Departmental Head who forwards the information to the EHS Manager or the designated alternative.

NB:      In case of any accident that leads to the death of personnel or major accidents involving Company trucks or loss/damage of Company property, they are handled as per the Incident management program.

Accidents involving third parties

If the accident involves a visitor, the person being visited or responsible for the visit is responsible for ensuring that the accident is reported to the EHS manager and that it is investigated. Accidents involving contractors onsite are handled as per the contractor procedure