CHARLESTON AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. –
Whether you are an Airman, government civilian or contractor, safety should be a part of your daily lives.
Safety is something we always hear about at work. Commanders routinely brief safety at their commander's calls, each organization has a unit safety representative to track mishaps and provide safety information to the unit, and the wing has an entire safety office to help manage the wing safety programs. But how do we actually practice safety?
We have excellent safety programs in the Air Force and here at Charleston AFB. All organizations have some process to disseminate safety information to their people. In the flying community, we conduct quarterly safety meetings where we brief past mishaps in order to educate our Airmen and help prevent the mishap from happening again. All organizations also conduct safety briefings before they begin a task. At work, we always have a safety focus, whether it is an aircrew briefing for a mission or an aerial port loading team getting ready to load an aircraft.
So with all the programs, commander involvement and attention to detail from our Team Charleston members we do a very good job with safety at work. Unfortunately there is a different story at home or off duty.
There are twice as many off-duty and off-base mishaps per year and the trends have been that way for a long time. In 2007, Charleston AFB had 32 on-duty mishaps compared to 73 off-duty mishaps, two of which were fatalities. What that tells me is that some of us tend to hang up our safety hat when we leave work. I hope that is not the case. However, as you can see, the data shows that we need to do a better job when we are not at work. We are too valuable to our families as well as Team Charleston not to.
So what can you do? The best thing to do is to just think before you act. It sounds very simple, however, somehow we sometimes just don't think before we do something. One easy way to remember is to use the acronym ACT. "A" Assess the risks. "C" Consider the options to mitigate the risks. "T" Take the action necessary to mitigate those risks. You can apply this to almost anything you do.
Say you are going to mow the lawn. First, you look at the risks while you are mowing the lawn. The mower could throw a rock or other object that could hit you or someone else in the area. You could spill gasoline when you try to fill the tank. You could slip and fall while pulling the mower towards you. Finally, mowers are noisy so you could damage your hearing. So that is the "A," or assessing the risk part. Now let's look at "C" for considering options.
To minimize the risk of the mower throwing a rock or other object, you should first check the lawn to make sure there were no rocks or other objects in the grass. If the mower actually threw a rock, you should have eye protection, long pants and closed toe shoes. Do you have a fire extinguisher ready in case fuel ignites on the hot engine? What about ear protection? After you consider the options you need to accomplish the "T," or take action part to make it all work.
How many of you have seen people mowing their lawns with shorts, no shirt, sandals and no hearing or eye protection? Not a very good idea; however, I know you have seen it and you may have done it yourself. This is just one example of how to use ACT to mitigate your risks. You can use this for almost anything from driving your personal vehicle, operating a boat or just working in the yard. The key is to just stop and think about the risks and then try to minimize or eliminate the ones you can.
Every injury, whether on- or off-duty, impacts the ability of Team Charleston to "Take the Fight to the Enemy," especially as we draw down our manning. Remember, each and every one of us is responsible for safety at work and at home. At work, we have built-in safety programs to help us; however, at home or off-duty, we have all the responsibility.
All I ask is that you don't forget about safety when you leave work, take time to think before you accomplish a task, use ACT to help identify and mitigate the risks and, finally, safety is not just important at work, safety is a full-time job.