A Safety Story – The Donkey Crossing the River

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A donkey was carrying salt across the river; it slipped by the riverbank and fell into the water, causing the salt to dissolve. When the donkey stood up, it felt much lighter. The donkey thought it had gained experience. Later, once it was carrying cotton on its back; when it reached the riverbank, it deliberately fell into the water. The cotton absorbed the water, and the donkey was unable to get up again, eventually dying from drowning. We can draw a lesson from this story: Why did the donkey die an unnatural death? Because it relies too much on “experience,” without realizing that such experience gained through “chance” opportunities is not reliable. During the production process, some employees do not follow the safety procedures, only to find that this somehow simplifies the work processes and reduces the workload. As a result, these employees mistakenly regarded these illegal practices as valuable “experience” and took pleasure in them. Everyone is familiar with Heinrich’s Law: statistically, behind every serious accident, there are 29 minor accidents, 300 near-misses, and 1,000 potential accident hazards. Therefore, with these employees’ improper operations, it might be fine once or twice, or even ten or a hundred times, but ultimately cleverness can backfire; under certain production conditions, when they try to use such tactics again, that \"experience\" can turn into an \"accident\". Insight 2: From the company’s perspective, there are issues with our training programs. Salt and cotton are our raw materials; employees are assigned to work without even understanding the basic properties of these materials, which means the company bears some responsibility in case of accidents. In reality, many companies’ training programs are somewhat formalistic in terms of both format and content, and there are also quite a few companies that provide training while employees are still working ； Start working first and address the issues later: Problems arose due to poor planning in the initial stage, so the training standards need to be revised ； So a lot of training materials are derived from lessons learned through bloodshed ； Insight 3: Potential shortcomings in the company’s accident management: After an accident occurs, we should conduct analyses and develop countermeasures: 1) Why did the donkey slip? And why did it fall into the river? ； These are the problems with our hardware equipment: there are obstacles on the roads, and there is insufficient safety protection along the riverbank ； There is also the issue of the donkeys carrying excessive loads ； It seems the workers are still distracted ； In short, we should adopt different improvement measures for various situations ； Prevent the recurrence of accidents ； 2) After an accident occurs, we should take a comprehensive approach based on the specific circumstances: our materials may absorb moisture when exposed to water, react with it, and cause environmental pollution – these are all negative issues. We should adopt appropriate measures for different characteristics, and educate people about the risks involved in the work process ； And different packaging methods are used for the materials to prevent similar accidents from occurring again ；