Echoes of Days Gone By #1

In a previous role I was privileged to contribute book reviews for the Industrial Foundation for Accident Prevention (IFAP) bi-monthly journal Safety WA.

Many of those books I reviewed still have relevance to the contemporary health and safety profession. Michael Morgan , Managing Director of the WHS Foundation (the successor to IFAP) has kindly given me permission to reproduce the reviews that were published in Safety WA.

My first review, from May 2002, was of one of my still-favourite reads Set Phasers on Stun by Steven Casey.

The review is presented below, in it's pre-edited version:

This is a tremendous, easy-to-read book that should be part of every safety and health professionals' library.

Steven Casey has collected information relating to 20 actual accidents that directly resulted from poor application of the principles of ergonomics – the science of ensuring effective interaction between the design of technological systems and the humans that use them.

Each anecdote consists of 10 to 15 pages of information that describes the accident and its outcomes. The author lets the facts of each event speak for themselves and makes no attempt to pass criticism or comment about the accident, allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions. Although the contents cover some technical issues, they are covered in plain English that? makes the book straightforward to follow.

The accidents that are covered range from an electrocution resulting from contact with overhead power lines to a review of the events associated with the Bhopal disaster which occurred in India in 1984, and resulted in catastrophic loss of life.

The electrocution accident, included in the chapter 'Chutes and Ladders' has particular relevance to safety and health professionals, not because of the sequence of events that led to the unfortunate death? of an employee, but rather because it was one of several deaths that occurred in similar circumstances within a short time period. Analysis of the previous accidents had been of insufficient quality to determine the actual contributing factors, and had therefore had little influence on altering the systems in place to prevent further accidents from occurring. As readers of the text will attest – the most profound underlying contributing factor comes as something of a surprise!

The title of the book provides insight into the subject material it contains. The title derives from a comment passed by an unwitting victim of poor ergonomics who, while receiving radiotherapy received a dose of radiation 100 times greater than he should have, not once, but 3 times, within a short period of time. The overdose was delivered due to a glitch in the software that supported the radiotherapy device.

In today's world of work, where manufacturers, engineers, designers, planners and architects have their duty of care obligations enshrined in the statutes, this book has salient messages for the broader audience as well as safety and health professionals.