Recently I came home to this hand-lettered safety sign. My son had posted it on the fence, above a slippery patch of black ice on the walkway. It made a big difference to me and others who could have been seriously injured.
Category: Personal stories
Last week I met a pet store manager who’d been bitten on the face by a dog. Her name is Rayne and she is very shaken up from the incident – feeling like her lifelong trust in animals is now in question.
Last week I was at a café , having a “What do you do?” conversation at an outdoor table. When I told people I’ve been working on a workplace safety blog, “Well, I’ve got a story for you!” exclaimed a 33-year-old named Jimmy. “My buddy and I were working for a construction guy and, when I asked him to hire a safety guy, he punched me in the face!”
One witness described it as “epic.” Last weekend I slipped down seven stairs in my house. Somehow I “surfed” down all of them on my feet.
BC archaeologist Shannon Cameron takes precautions every time she goes to work in the woods. But one day, she and her coworker met a bear whose curiosity outweighed his instinct to avoid humans.
I’ve admired paramedics ever since I was a kid in the 70s, watching the old TV show Emergency! Since then, in real life, I’ve seen paramedics do amazing things, with such kindness and compassion.
If you drive your own car at work, you’re part of what’s called “the grey fleet” and your car is considered part of your workplace. Sales people, home care workers, and house cleaners are in the grey fleet – and once upon a time so was I.
“If I was to report every time a patient actually tries to strike out at me or literally tries to claw me or kick me, we’d be drowning in a sea of paperwork,” said Beth, who has worked as a nurse for four years. “There’s huge under-reporting because it’s ‘just part of the job’ – but it shouldn’t be.”
I asked Earl about his training in violence prevention. He said he and his colleagues in the recreation department take seminars on the topic every two years. He said that in 10 years he’s only had one brush with violence. But maybe there’s something about violence that warrants so much preparation against it. It can happen so suddenly, and it’s helpful to think in advance what you would do if you became the target of someone’s anger.
“People love giving and receiving high-fives,” says Canadian Paralympic medallist Josh Dueck, who High Fived 9,307 people on August 27 and 28 in Vancouver, breaking the GUINNESS WORLD RECORD and raising awareness of young worker safety.
