Last week, I wrote about a workplace fatality that occurred during my watch as plant safety representative. The experience had a profound effect on everyone in our workplace including me. The victim was both my co-worker and my friend. As we grieved the loss of a colleague, we relied on our company's incident response plan. Its guidelines helped us through a sad and unfamiliar experience. I urge you to implement a plan for handling a workplace fatality or serious injury. Let me suggest how to create such a plan.

The 8 Essentials of an Incident Response Plan

Before you start preparing your plan, it's important to contact the law enforcement and coroner's office in your district. This will ensure that your procedures are kept within local law requirements.

But, in general, there are eight things a plan should address:

1. Notification Procedures

Develop a formal method of communicating to ensure that all pertinent departments are notified of an incident. This procedure should specify:

• The names/positions and contact information of those to be notified;
• When they must be notified, listed in order of priority; and
• The person or position responsible for making contact.

2. A Victim Services Team

Consisting of personnel within the company, this team should be responsible for coordinating:

• Notifying the victim's family;
• Locating the hospital;
• Transporting the family;
• Handling the victim's personal effects, such as wallet, purse, jewelry, tools, automobile, etc.;
• Procuring critical incident stress services or counseling for co-workers; and
• Notifying the company's human resources department and initiating procedures regarding dispersal of the final paycheck and emergency assistance plans.

It's important that the family be notified quickly. In small towns, some police reports are still broadcasted over scanners. It's also important to specify in your plan that a company representative should stay with the family until other personal support, such as clergy or relative, arrives.

3. Medical Waste Management

Outline procedures for handling any medical waste in accordance with federal and state regulations. Many states have regulations regarding the correct disposal of medical waste. In some cases, industrial sites fall under a different set of regulations than other businesses. To be sure your procedure is correct, I would suggest you contact your:

• State health department;
• Local environmental agency;
• Coroner's office; or
• Local large hospital.

4. Communicating with the Media

In addition to the notification list, work with your public relations staff to determine how, when and by whom information is communicated to the media.

5. Incident Investigation

The company should initiate a formal review of the incident. This investigation should be conducted by someone other than management and the victim's co-workers. Be sure to notify the family before communicating the investigation results to employees.

6. Privacy Issues

Employees will want to ensure the victim's family will be financially provided for. They may even want to start a fund drive. Do not breach confidentiality by discussing, for instance, what benefits the employee had and did not have.

7. The Funeral

If a funeral is involved, make decisions early about:

• Who will and will not attend;
• Whether time attending the funeral counts as vacation time; and
• Whether to hire a bus or van or otherwise provide for group transportation. This can increase safety and aid the grieving process by bringing all participants together as a group.

8. Grieving

It is important to take care of your employees while they're grieving. You can do this by:

• Holding an employee counseling or debriefing session;
• Reorganizing workloads for employees impacted at the jobsite so they have "light duty" or non-safety-sensitive work to do;
• Allowing employees to go home early, if they wish;
• Creating a "buddy system" at the workplace for several days;
• Assigning teams to work together. This not only helps with grief, it also improves safety.

Conclusion

The serious injury or death of a co-worker can be a traumatic and emotional event for employees. Having an incident response plan in place can be a valuable asset. It not only prevents embarrassing public relations situations for a company, but it also provides aid and comfort to your employees and to the family of the victim.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY
September 26, 2002

The MV Joola took more lives than the Titanic

By Catherine Jones

Senegal Ferry, the MV Joola, Capsizes

Just as workplace fatalities are distressing for co-workers, natural disasters and other tragedies are traumatic for those who volunteer to help their community. This was a lesson learned after the sinking of the MV Joola.

Four years ago today, during a stormy night voyage off the coast of Gambia, the worst maritime disaster in African history occurred when the Senegalese government-owned ferry, the MV Joola, capsized. The ferry, which was built to carry up to 800 passengers, was carrying more than twice that amount when it sank, including many children returning to schools in the city.

Investigations by the Senegalese and French authorities attributed the disaster to bad weather, poor vessel maintenance, improper use of the vessel (it was designed for lake, not sea) and overcrowding. At least 1,800 passengers perished; only 64 people survived.

Effect on the Rescuers

The tragedy devastated an entire country, including the more than 150 Red Cross volunteers who worked with other rescue teams to recover, identify and bury the victims. They comforted thousands of grieving family members awaiting word of their loved ones; many of the volunteers themselves had family or friends onboard the ferry.

While the Senegalese Red Cross provided the victims' families with psychological support during the recovery process, the organization officials afterwards recognized a glaring oversight. Together with the Senegalese Ministry of Health, they coordinated a two-day workshop on stress management, counseling and mourning, and focused on a need often overlooked during a major disaster - that rescuers require psychological support to cope with their own emotions, too.

EDITOR'S NOTE
Bringing You Direct Access to Our Safety Experts

The SafetyXChange community continues to expand and add value. Our newest improvement: An "Ask the Expert" service.

Here's how it will work. Each week, one of the SafetyXChange newsletters will issue a call for questions. The invitation will introduce you to one of the members of the SafetyXChange Board of Advisors and define that person's area of expertise. We will then invite you to submit questions directly to the expert. The expert will field as many of your questions as possible. We will then post your questions and the expert's answers in the next week's issue of that SafetyXChange letter.

We will issue the first invitation in this Monday's compliance newsletter. So keep your eyes peeled.

Catherine Jones
SafetyXChange
Managing Editor

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