Life Saving

Introduction:

Workplace is always prone to hazard in the form of physical hazard, chemical hazard, biological hazard, and so on. It depends on the nature of industry and workplace environment. Thus, it is natural that body becomes a recipe of injury for many reasons. This is where, somebody has to use presence of mind to save the injured workers by providing first aid.

Whenever there is a situation of medical emergency or injury, knowing what to do immediately will make all the difference between life saving or death. Unless employees are trained on administering first aid, the victim won't get the real time first aid assistance thereby chances of aggravating the injury further. No employee would like to see a fellow worker get injured or serious. Same is the issue from the perspective of employer. Hence, providing first aid training is the key not only to save lives, but minimizing the claim compensation. Employees need to be infused with confidence and right skill to provide first aid to deal with fire related injury, falling from height injury or any such workplace injuries. Thus, it is suggested that to avoid tragic outcome at workplace, provide training on first aid as per the health and safety legislation.

Again, working in hazardous industries or confined space without constant supply of clean and breathable air might prove fatal. For instance, working in industries like steel plant, chemical, oil and gas, where getting exposed to toxic substances are substantial. Therefore, SCBA is the right respiratory equipment which comes handy for working in hazardous environment. Mostly, it is used by rescuers and fire fighters. However, the dilemma is that, wearer must have the knowledge of donning and doffing including inspection so that rescue works would be carried out effectively. Otherwise, SCBA as lifesaving equipment is of no value. There are a lot of technicalities involved for proper use like visual inspection, flow test, testing PASS alarm and so on. Therefore, it would be prudent to provide comprehensive training on use of SCBA to employees for better performances without compromising on life.

Another aspect of lifesaving that requires high attention is defensive driving. Life on wheels is always prone to accident in small scale or could catastrophe into a larger one. The irony is that vehicle is an integral part of our life and we can't part away from it totally. Though it is very useful for getting things done (be it personal work or industrial use), yet it has its share of woes which at times could be life threatening. Hence, to avoid untoward accidents, resort to defensive driving techniques, which is nothing but a procedural knowledge to save lives irrespective of road conditions or actions of others. For some driving defensively could be demeaning; however, reality is that it will make the difference between getting involved in the accident or avoiding fully. Employer has the responsibility to ensure that automobiles used for any purpose should commute without any hassle from the perspective of safety. Otherwise, there would be a lot of incurring expenditure towards health recovery, insurance premium, loss of working days, etc. All these would end up loss of revenue, which eventually make a dent on the reputation of employer. Thus, provide defensive driving training to minimize accident casualties and save unnecessary expenditure.

Hence, it becomes incumbent on the part of employers to train employees on life saving techniques like first aid. Even if they are trained, their skill levels should be upgraded. In this regard, NIST has experienced trainers across industries and they provide hands on approach training as well as scenario based training while conveying safety concepts as per the need.