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Health, Safety & Environmental Bulletin No 135

S Martin – 23 April 2009

Feedback on good safety practice

As regular recipients of our bulletins, you will know that we have developed a strong strategy to raise
awareness but are certainly not immune from accidents. Being “asleep at the wheel” is the most
common accident cause and we therefore need to keep our focus to make sure that complacency
doesn’t creep in.

Having analysed our statistics, there are some very encouraging signs in that both the number and the
calibre of near misses continues to improve, as does the number of near misses where the danger is
eliminated or mitigated at source.

Good safety practice has in several cases prevented Xmo Strata / Xmo Veritas employees and
contractors from being hurt:-

At Nuthall Road F/Stn a drill bit broke and the safety glasses being worn prevented the operator from
any damage whatsoever; without these he could easily have lost the sight in his eye.

At Rothwell F/Stn a car skidded on ice and hit our van that was defensively parked as a rigid protective
barrier. This action almost certainly prevented the car careering into the work area and potentially
hitting a mobile scaffold tower or an employee.

At Wells F/Stn a hacksaw slipped whilst being used. The operator was wearing gloves rated to cut
resistance 3, as specified on his JSA and sustained just a 5mm long cut to his knuckle; without the
gloves, the cut would almost certainly have been significantly worse.

Please keep up the good work by continuing to refer to and use your JSA/Safety Method Statements, be
vigilant, look for and record site specific hazards and suitable control measures on your clearance
certificates and report and address any near misses you incur at source.

Our individual safety is not solely in our hands, we have to rely on those around us
to steer us away from danger and warn us of potential hazards. We need safety
awareness to be instinctive and form an integral part of our working lives; it is this,
in turn, that may save the lives of others.

If you have any queries regarding the Safety Bulletin content or require further information please
contact any staff member of Xmo Strata Ltd.