Heavy Machinery – It Always Wins!

digger-12183682016 is a big year for us at Safety in Schools. We launched our newest course, Life Lessons – Learning the Hard Way, in February and are now continuing work on the development of two more new courses. That’s Got to Hurt! Lessons from the Workplace will be based on real-life experiences of Safety in Schools students shared with us through a variety of contests running throughout the 2015-2016 school year. While these contests are running, we will be working hard at putting together our other new course, Heavy Machinery – It Always Wins.

Heavy Machinery – It Always Wins will focus on serious workplace incidents involving heavy machinery. Basing lessons off of real-life incidents and potential hazards identified by experts, the course will focus on how to identify hazards in three types of job sectors that involve heavy machinery: manufacturing, transportation and operations.

While it is difficult to identify all of the specific hazards that students taking the course may come across in their working lives, teaching students how to look for hazards and identify the best way to mitigate them can be done using example situations, which is what this course will do. Presenting a variety of situational examples, Heavy Machinery will give students the opportunity to critically analyze situations and complete a hazard assessment.

Heavy machinery is a factor in a disproportionate number of severe injuries and fatalities. Of 51 convictions in Alberta between 2010 and 2014, 30 incidents involved heavy machinery resulting in 16 fatalities. We can prevent more of these injuries and fatalities from occurring though early education. By engaging youth with real-life examples of the risks heavy machinery poses, we can start them thinking critically before they are exposed to these risks. We can send our young people into the working world aware of the risks, engaged with their surroundings and knowledgeable about role they play in their own safety and that of those around them.

Working Around Powered Mobile Equipment

For a better understanding of the dangers of working around some types of heavy machinery, take a look at this video produced by the Alberta Construction Safety Association (ACSA) – Working Around Powered Mobile Equipment. This video goes over several of the specific dangers as well as how to avoid them.

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