Published: June 30, 2008 01:40 pm            

Safety is an important issue

Safety is an important issue these days. Corporations lose millions annually due to accidents that could have been prevented if employees had applied their firms’ safety training. 

One of the more startling stories I’ve heard involved a worker at an oil refinery who had been through all the safety meetings but thought he was above implementing measures his company insisted were critical to maintaining a safe working environment.

In a hurry to be done with his duties, one night he turned a certain large valve without employing company mandated safety procedures and before he knew it the refinery turned into a blazing inferno, part of which included him as fuel.

Company officials visited him in the hospital and to his utter dismay, recruited him to be safety czar for the plant! Barely able to believe his ears, he said, “After what I did, you guys should be firing me. Instead, you’re asking me to be safety coordinator?”

Yes, they responded, their reasoning being that now that he was a true believer, who better to head up the effort?

It was a wise decision. Between the accident and the healing he morphed into a safety evangelist who addressed his subject with zeal.

Things are much different now than even a few decades ago on the corporate safety front. My older brother was fitted for false teeth before he was 25 because the real ones ended up on a drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Following his horrific accident, the tool pusher sent him home by himself, still bleeding from the mouth!

This isn’t to say mishaps don’t occur on drilling platforms today, because rigs are still dangerous places to work. But I’m guessing like the rest of us they are more safety conscious than they’ve ever been.

We have ratcheted up our safety efforts here at the newspaper, too. The good folks at Pontotoc Technology Center and the fire department conduct twice a month safety meetings with us in which we learn what the pitfalls can be and how to keep accidents and resulting injuries from occurring in the first place.

For instance, we regularly conduct drills regarding what to do and where to go in the event of a tornado or fire. In the event of a tornado, our employees know to head to the camera room area in the very center of the building. As it turns out, the Ada Evening News is one of the safest in the area for protection during a severe storm. 

A few years ago we installed a ventilator shaft in the camera room and it took workers two days to drill through our building’s outer wall! If you and a tornado are ever in this area together, stop in. 

The biggest safety issue we face, though, is not nearly as dramatic as a tornado. It is our stairs. Most of our safety incidents result from some mishap involving them.

Please visit us. But if you have to go upstairs, hold the rail! 

        

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