If you have Racking on your site, whether in your warehouse or yard, safety is paramount and it is important to understand what to do when an accident or incident occurs.
What Should You Do In The Event of Serious Incidents within your Workplace Including Racking Collapse, Where a Reportable Injury is Caused?
What is a Reportable Accident?
A Reportable Accident is an accident that firstly involves the collapse of over 5000kgs of material.
What is a Reportable Injury?
In addition to the collapse, an incident is definable as a Reportable Injury if the person/persons injured in the collapse of the material are off work/unable to perform their normal range of duties for more than three days (including weekends & holidays.)
What is a Dangerous Occurrence?
This image constitutes a Dangerous Occurrence i.e an incident where less that 5000kgs of material comes down, but thankfully, no one is hurt. However, despite the avoidance of injury this time, the collapse would still be classed as a Dangerous Occurrence if there was a clear risk likely to cause a racking collapse or someone could have, in fact, been injured (Reportable Injury).
Serious Incidents
Serious Incidents are thankfully a rare occurrence, especially if all Health and Safety procedures are followed, kept up to date and regular checks made.
However, in the unfortunate event of a Serious Incident occurring within the workplace, the following action is immediately required:
- Ensure that anyone who has been injured by or trapped received medical attention immediately.
- Clear and secure the affected area without delay and if possible, obtain specialist advice before anything is moved.
- Directly follow your company standing procedures regarding induty advise Factory Inspector, Health & Safety Executive etc.
- Report the incident to the appropriate notifying authority without delay.
- Take lots of photographs as soon as possible
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In the event that a caution under PACE ensues it would be advisable to consider appointing an expert witness.
- Thoroughly review the likely causes of the incident to ensure that there are no similar situations waiting to occur.
If you and your company have any concerns about Racking Safety, Stakapal can offer many services that may assist you. With a full range of safety checks, ranging from missing Load Labels and Beam Locking Pins, through to full racking inspections by our in-house SARI (SEMA Approved Racking Inspector), Stakapal can work alongside you and your company to ensure complete rack safety and eradicate any potential risks. Get in touch for more information.
