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Risk Tip:

Safety, Even at Home

May 2012

The National Safety Council (NSC) states that “about one-third of all injuries and 20% of injury deaths occur at home.”  The types and causes of these injuries vary from choking to falls and poisonings to vehicle incidents.  “When someone is injured, the effects go beyond that person and extend to family members, friends, neighbors, employers and communities.”  Underwriters Laboratories states “…safety is important to us because we know it is important to you.  And there’s no place more important to keep safe than your home.”

Risk Management declares that you go home the same way you came to work.  What that means is we want you to be safe at work so you can go home to your family and friends at the end of the day.  On the flip side of that, we would like you to be safe at home so you can come back to work.  Either way, the primary reason that safety at home is so important is your family.

We have been tasked with the care and wellbeing of our family.  All too often we think just because we are at home that safety does not have a role.  On the contrary, as you can see by the NSC statistics above, safety plays a great role at home.   Think about all of the different tasks, undertakings and day to day living we do at home.  We are engaged in similar types of duties at home as we have at work.  For instance, we do housekeeping, fire protection, HAZCOM, slips trips and falls, electrical work, machine guarding, lockout/tagout, to name a few.  

Why would we not take home the skills we have learned at work and apply them there?  Simple, it is called being comfortable in our own surroundings.

So what do we do?  We get out of our comfort zone and think, act, apply the knowledge that we have gained at work and educate our family as well.  Here are a few ideas from various sources:

1. Develop an emergency plan to include fire escape drills, fire extinguisher use, sounding the alarm (American Safety and Health Institute)
2. Get CPR and First Aid trained (NSC)
3. Take a walk around the house, look for potential hazards and take care of them
4. If you have children, child proof your house including outlets, appliances, book shelves, electronics, stairs and windows (UL)
5. Avoid using non UL listed extension cords and surge protectors
6. Check your garage for incompatible chemicals (Risk Management can help with this), unguarded machines, items that can tip over easy, tools that can cut or harm a child, etc.
7. Take a ten minute backyard safety hike as depicted in the following website:  http://www.safetyathome.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/backyard_safetyexpedition.pdf
8. When conducting yard work, especially mowing, trimming and weed eating, wear appropriate attire e.g. long pants, long sleeve shirt, closed toe shoes and proper PPE such as safety glasses, gloves and even sun tan lotion
9. Be careful on ladders and roof tops
10. When backing out of the driveway, walk around the car to ensure nothing or more importantly, no one is there.

By following these simple guidelines we can rest assured that we will be safe at home.