The fire that took the lives of five people in Stamford Connecticut early on Christmas Day is most troubling. See the video below. My sympathies go out to the lady who lost her children and her parents. I have had sleepless nights this week about that tragedy and more that will come in most any city and state on a regular basis.
With all events like this there is the need to understand what went wrong in the interest of prevention of future occurrences. There is going to be plenty of blame passed around. My guess is that this event will not go away soon. Even the question of why the Building Department acted so quickly to have the house demolished is going to be asked. The fire Department had said that it would be several days before the Fire Marshall could investigate. Yet at 8:00AM on Dec 26, 24 hours later, the house was torn down.
I may be the only one to bring up one issue. This is not intended to blame one of the victims but it is to blame a cultural issue that is a huge undocumented problem.
The grandfather had retired as Safety and Security Director of Brown Foreman, the liquor manufacturer. According to the press and people who knew him his entire career had been devoted to safety. He certainly knew about fire prevention, smoke alarms, friendly fire becoming unfriendly fire, and escape plans. At the present time it is believed that there were no active smoke detectors in the house. We do know that all of the family members were awake and mobile. Is it possible that this man had given no thought to the possibility of fire in the large 100 year old house with construction work underway? Is it possible that he had never, in his daughter's 47 year life, never instructed her in safety? Unfortunately the answer is probably yes to both questions. I have seen many people who understand safety on the job who are somehow unable to view application of their knowledge off the job. Somehow or another we can learn to be safe in our area of the workplace and forget it all as soon as we punch out and leave. It's as if safety is a piece of a job yet is not a piece of life. Unfortunately in many work places, safety is viewed as a necessary evil for legal compliance.
A number of years back, a man well-known for both his scientific and business knowledge engaged me to put together some defensive driving for his company staff. Right there in his office he asked me if I would be dealing with single-vehicle rollovers and seat belts. I assured him that we gave plenty of emphasis to those issues. A few months later, that man died in a single vehicle rollover while on vacation with his daughter driving. He was not wearing a seat belt. When the vehicle rolled he was ejected from the vehicle.
One of the things we aim to do in Cowboy Safety is to make safety become a part of one's personal culture. We have some unique solutions that have been heavily criticized by proponents of company safety culture. Many of these folks are believers in off the job safety but view that as a separate issue. It is not a separate issue.
When we make safety an internal value rather than a logical site specific process we can actually eliminate much of the expense we incur for safety.
David Sneed
With all events like this there is the need to understand what went wrong in the interest of prevention of future occurrences. There is going to be plenty of blame passed around. My guess is that this event will not go away soon. Even the question of why the Building Department acted so quickly to have the house demolished is going to be asked. The fire Department had said that it would be several days before the Fire Marshall could investigate. Yet at 8:00AM on Dec 26, 24 hours later, the house was torn down.
I may be the only one to bring up one issue. This is not intended to blame one of the victims but it is to blame a cultural issue that is a huge undocumented problem.
The grandfather had retired as Safety and Security Director of Brown Foreman, the liquor manufacturer. According to the press and people who knew him his entire career had been devoted to safety. He certainly knew about fire prevention, smoke alarms, friendly fire becoming unfriendly fire, and escape plans. At the present time it is believed that there were no active smoke detectors in the house. We do know that all of the family members were awake and mobile. Is it possible that this man had given no thought to the possibility of fire in the large 100 year old house with construction work underway? Is it possible that he had never, in his daughter's 47 year life, never instructed her in safety? Unfortunately the answer is probably yes to both questions. I have seen many people who understand safety on the job who are somehow unable to view application of their knowledge off the job. Somehow or another we can learn to be safe in our area of the workplace and forget it all as soon as we punch out and leave. It's as if safety is a piece of a job yet is not a piece of life. Unfortunately in many work places, safety is viewed as a necessary evil for legal compliance.
A number of years back, a man well-known for both his scientific and business knowledge engaged me to put together some defensive driving for his company staff. Right there in his office he asked me if I would be dealing with single-vehicle rollovers and seat belts. I assured him that we gave plenty of emphasis to those issues. A few months later, that man died in a single vehicle rollover while on vacation with his daughter driving. He was not wearing a seat belt. When the vehicle rolled he was ejected from the vehicle.
One of the things we aim to do in Cowboy Safety is to make safety become a part of one's personal culture. We have some unique solutions that have been heavily criticized by proponents of company safety culture. Many of these folks are believers in off the job safety but view that as a separate issue. It is not a separate issue.
When we make safety an internal value rather than a logical site specific process we can actually eliminate much of the expense we incur for safety.
David Sneed
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