While looking through some old newspaper clippings, I found a story about firefighters in Moraga, California, who were cited by CAL-OSHA for violating safety regulations. What caught my eye was that the supposed safety violation occurred in the course of a trench rescue. And the story set me to thinking about the law and the sense - or lack thereof - with which it is sometimes enforced.

Putting a Damper on a Successful Rescue

Since I wasn't there, I can only go by what I read in the article. It seems that there was a worker who found himself trapped in a 12-foot deep trench which had not been properly sloped or shored. The rescue operation took almost three hours. Thankfully, it went smoothly. The victim was saved and nobody on the rescue team was injured.

You'd think that this would be cause for rejoicing. But some observers had a different take. CAL-OSHA, for example. State regulations prohibit workers, including fire-fighters, from entering a trench unless it is properly shored. In rescuing the trapped worker, the firemen broke the law.

What Do You Think?

This story struck me as just not right. I know that if it had been me who had been trapped inside that trench with hundreds of pounds of soil on top of me, I'd sure as heck want somebody entering the trench to get me out - OSHA violation or not. Wouldn't you?

So I couldn't help but say "amen, brother" to Assistant Fire Chief Ed Lucas's reaction to the citation: "What were we supposed to do, let the man sit there while we go find shoring from some unknown place that meets every code?"

My Internal Debate

All of this raises a larger question: Should safety rules ever be ignored, even in emergency situations? This is not as simple a question as it might appear. On the one hand, I don't believe in black and white answers. After all, there are too many variables in life to say that a rule must always be obeyed regardless of the circumstances. When people blindly follow rules, they are also likely to blindly fall into problems caused by the rules.

On the other hand, what if on that exciting day in Moraga, California, four firemen and the victim had died during the rescue attempt because of further cave-ins? What would the Assistant Fire Chief have said then? What would the victim's family say if they knew that shoring may have prevented the deaths? What would you say if one of the firefighters who died had been a member of your own family?

Conclusion

At the end of the day, I think the lesson is that while rules are important, we need to be sensible about how we apply them. The purpose of the safety rule is to prevent injury. To the extent that obeying the rule is more likely to cause injury than disobeying it would, the rule should be set aside. In other words, compliance with safety rules should be a means to an end, not an end in itself.

As safety and health professionals, it's our job to "enlighten" workers not about rules but about safety. More often than not, safety and rules are one and the same. But on rare occasions, they're not. That's why training is so important. Employees need to know why a safety rule is in place. Not so they can figure out when to ignore it, but so they can recognize situations which challenge the appropriateness of the rule and stop work to get help.

SAFETY RULE VIOLATIONS BY RESCUE WORKERS

Would you cite this man for a safety violation?

Lessons from a California Case

By Glenn Demby

If you think the incident Richard is musing over is some kind of freak occurrence, think again. The citing by OSHA of rescue workers for disobeying safety rules during emergency operations happens more often than you might think. Consider the following case from last month.

What Happened

While helping with the construction of a new building, a California worker fell to the basement pit and was seriously injured. Paramedics arrived and went down to the pit to provide the victim emergency treatment. But they had to get him out of the pit to provide further assistance. So the victim's co-worker climbed 26 feet up the building's steel structure and directed the crane operator via telephone to lift a man-basket with the injured worker and paramedics out of the pit. The co-worker wasn't wearing a safety belt or lifeline. When OSHA arrived, it cited the employer for fall protection violations.

The Defense

The employer admitted that one of its workers had been standing on a high I-beam without appropriate protection. But it contested the citation, reasoning that the co-worker wasn't technically "working" at the time. He was just acting as a Good Samaritan trying to help the victim.

The Ruling

The appeals courts disagreed. The rescue operation was "necessitated by an on-the-job accident," the court said. Thus, during the rescue operation the co-worker was acting not as a Good Samaritan but as a worker subject to OSHA rules. The employer was therefore guilty of a violation of fall protection standards.

Herrick Corp. v. California Occupational Health and Safety Appeals Board, 2006 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 9982, Nov. 1, 2006.

SPOT THE SAFETY HAZARD

What if Ebeneezer Scrooge had been a safety director?

The Ebeneezer Scrooge Edition

By Glenn Demby

As our holiday card to you, in the coming days, SafetyXChange will print a line from a well known Christmas carol (or non-sectarian holiday song) and ask you to spot the health and safety hazard it contains. Good luck.

"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. . ."

Can you spot the hazard?

Answer: Heat and vapors from open fires, especially in indoor spaces, may light fires in other parts of the building and/or ignite nearby flammable and combustible substances.

NOTE: You can buy a decorative poster containing 10 Ebeneezer Scrooge "Spot the Safety Hazards" and some other pretty cool holiday posters from our parent company, Bongarde Media, at http://www.safetyposter.com/2720.html.

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