"The proof of the pudding is in the eating. By a small sample we may judge of the whole piece."

- Miguel de Cervantes

I think it's safe to assume that the great 16th century writer, Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, wasn't thinking about workplace safety audits when he penned these words. But his thoughts do justice to the concept of the safety audit, nevertheless. In this series, I hope to provide some insight into the safety audit process.

What Is a Safety Audit?

A safety audit is a proactive process undertaken by an organization to evaluate and monitor the progress and effectiveness of its occupational health and safety programs on a continual and ongoing basis. The safety audit is the part of a safety management system that subjects each area of an organization's safety system to systematic, critical examination. Each component of the total system is included: management policy, features of the process and design, operating procedures, emergency procedures, training, etc.

"Safety auditing" is often used interchangeably with the term "safety inspection." But the two are not the same:

A safety inspection is an examination of actual conditions. It's typically deemed to be a departmental and line management responsibility.

A safety audit, by contrast, is defined as follows:

1. The systematic and documented process for obtaining audit evidence and evaluating it objectively to determine the extent to which certain audit criteria are fulfilled. (Source: CSA Z1000-06 standard on occupational health and safety management systems).
2. An  evaluation of an organization, system, process, project or product performed by a competent, independent, objective and unbiased person or persons, known as auditors. The purpose is to verify that the subject of the audit was completed or operates according to approved and accepted standards, statutes, regulations or practices. It also evaluates controls to determine if conformance will continue, and recommends necessary changes in policies, procedures or controls. Auditing is a part of some quality control certifications such as ISO 9001:2000.
   (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audit)

The Purpose of the Safety Audit?

The aim of the audit is to identify the strengths and weaknesses and the main areas of vulnerability and risk, with the objective of minimizing loss through accident and/or plant damage. The primary objectives of a safety audit are to:

• Confirm that health and safety program activities and controls are in place to address the identified risks associated with the work performed in the business;
• Verify that the business is in compliance with internal benchmarks, approved business practices and/or government regulation; and
• Assess past and current practices to identify and correct safety issues which, if left unresolved, could result in loss through personal injury, property and/or equipment damage or business interruption.

Conclusion

Safety audits are growing in scope and importance. Reportedly, 95 percent of the Fortune 2000 companies now perform safety audits. But safety audits are just as critical for medium and small businesses. Risk exists at all operations, regardless of their size. So all of you need to establish a system to perform safety audits at your own organizations. The next two installments of this series will show you how to do so.

THERE IS DYING IN BASEBALL

Ray Chapman: The only player ever killed in a Major League Baseball game

The Tragic Death of Ray Chapman

By Glenn Demby

The All-Star break is a perfect time to reflect on one of the darkest moments in the history of Major League Baseball. It happened on August 16, 1920. The Cleveland Indians had travelled to the Polo Grounds in New York to take on an upstart team called the Yankees.

On the mound for the Yankees that day was Carl Mays, a right-handed submariner with a nasty reputation (Note: For you non-baseball fans, a submariner is a pitcher who hurls side armed, their knuckles almost scraping the ground, as opposed to over the shoulder). Mays considered home plate his personal territory and wasn't afraid to pitch high and tight to batters who "crowded the plate."

The Cleveland shortstop, 29-year-old Ray Chapman, was one of those who liked to crowd the plate. He came to bat leading off the fifth inning with Cleveland ahead 3-0. Mays's first pitch sailed inside and struck Chapman on the temple, fracturing his skull. The "crack" sounded so much like a batted ball that Yankee third baseman Aaron Ward actually charged the ricochet thinking that Chapman had hit it. But Chapman was down and unconscious. Blood poured from his ears, nose and mouth.

Chapman was removed from the field by stretcher and rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. But it was to no avail. Chapman was pronounced dead at 4:30 A.M.

The incident shocked and horrified not just baseball but the entire country. Mays appeared before the district attorney's homicide bureau but was later cleared of all wrongdoing. Although Mays was vilified in the press, the incident didn't affect his pitching. He'd go on to win 26 games for the Yankees that year and was later elected to the Hall of Fame.

Baseball's response to the tragedy was to ban the use of dirtied and weathered balls from play. Mandatory use of the batting helmet remained more than four decades away. There have been at least half a dozen notorious "bean ball" injuries since the death of Ray Chapman. However, Chapman remains the only person ever killed in a Major League Baseball game.

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