DCHAS-L Discussion List Archive
From: Monona Rossol <0000012821515289-dmarc-request**At_Symbol_Here**listserv.med.cornell.edu>
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] C&EN Safety Zone blog: When is something an accident?
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2016 10:50:13 -0400
Reply-To: DCHAS-L <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**MED.CORNELL.EDU>
Message-ID: 155548a8b3e-72e5-4cbd**At_Symbol_Here**webprd-a13.mail.aol.com
In-Reply-To
Just because children are misinformed and parents want to get off the hook for accidents does not change the definitions of these words. The problem you outline means that we need to start early to adjust the attitude of teachers and parents. Even though the child did not intend to cause damage, the fact that damage occurred should spur a discussion about the cause..
That's why courts have both claims for damages and claims for punitive damages. The difference is intent.
.
Monona Rossol, M.S., M.F.A., Industrial Hygienist
President: Arts, Crafts & Theater Safety, Inc.
Safety Officer: Local USA829, IATSE
181 Thompson St., #23
New York, NY 10012 212-777-0062
-----Original Message-----
From: Allen Niemi <anniemi**At_Symbol_Here**MTU.EDU>
To: DCHAS-L <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**MED.CORNELL.EDU>
Sent: Wed, Jun 15, 2016 10:39 am
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] C&EN Safety Zone blog: When is something an accident?
I'm going to take the other side on this issue. Every child born in the USA since George Washington's day understands that you will not be held accountable for something bad that happened during one of your activities if you can convince your parent(s) that it was just an "accident" and, therefore, you were not at fault. That is the common, ingrained, working definition of the word accident. I still see it come up on the section of our incident report form where you are asked for corrective actions -- "NA, it was just an accident". Most of our employees have learned the proper definition of the word accident only as a result of constant reinforcement and training. Nobody here gets away with implying that an accident was unavoidable on an injury report (or an incident without injury report) -- this will result in immediate feedback from the "safety guy". Before we became aggressive about this educational process an accident was unavoidable in the eyes of the average employee. We have not called our reports "accident reports" for decades, if ever, and I sincerely believe we should stop calling traffic crashes accidents. It's not about semantics, it's about raising awareness.
Al
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