My 10-year-old son and I were on a beach this summer and even though there were several hundred people around and a team of professional lifeguards on duty, a little boy drowned.

We will never be able to erase the day’s events from our memories. The drowning of a child is usually something you only read about in newspapers, but when you witness it firsthand, it’s entirely too easy to imagine the accident happening to any one of us.

Still, there has to be something to take away from an event like that, besides the nightmare. What I took away from it was this: even though at first this horrific event doesn’t immediately seem like it relates to our industry, it does. The drowning was a stark reminder of the fact that when we let key processes break down, tragedy can result. When we become so comfortable with our environment that we let our guards down, complacency becomes our worst enemy. Because that’s what happened on the beach that day.

Creating a safe environment in which to work or play can be as simple as maintaining constant hazard awareness for everybody involved and designing some simple checks and balances to be adhered to and monitored. If one piece goes missing, the door to disaster swings open.

When we first arrived at the beach, I noticed that all the lifeguards had congregated at one station. Two of the towers were unmanned. Nothing had gone wrong yet, so this did not appear to be a dangerous situation.
Four young boys went into the water, and they were allowed to horse around with minimal supervision. Still –normal human behaviour. Although my son wasn’t among the boys, there’s no reason to think they were much different than him. He has been taught to respect water and he has had swimming lessons since he was 6 years old. He was taught to watch for and obey lifeguards. He knows how to read signs before entering a pool or a public beach area, paying particular attention to any warnings. He also knows how to find out what the water conditions are and where the deep end is prior to entering a pool. My point is, even if the kids were completely beach-proofed, boys will be boys.

And while there were no undertow conditions, the wind and waves were high, so everybody’s vision was impeded. Situation: still pretty normal.

Apparently, when the little boys first noticed that one of their pals had gone missing, instead of instantly calling for help, they panicked and spent valuable seconds looking for their friend.

When the call to the lifeguards finally went out, the issue of lifeguard location became a life-or-death matter. Because the lifeguards had left the closest lifeguard station unmanned, several critical minutes were added to their response time.

Many of the adults on the beach formed a human chain. We swept the beachfront for almost 40 minutes before we located the boy. By that time, paramedics had arrived and they immediately tended to him. But the child was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
This was perhaps the most disturbing moment of my life.

Safety is the same everywhere — on the beach, in your home or around the fleet. It is all about training, education, monitoring of behavior, and ensuring that the checks and balances required in key areas remain in place.

Once people are in any environment they can make the most of the situtation using learned behaviours. But they should never let those behaviours become habitual. Second nature, yes, but they should not do things by rote.

Equipment checks, emergency response procedures and hazmat handling can never be treated lightly.
The same applies to driver screening, policy development, referencing, driver training, and fleet monitoring. Treat every pre-trip as if it’s your first. And stay mindful of human nature. People love to take shortcuts, and if there is no immediate “bad” consequence, the shortcut method becomes the norm. If that’s happening in your fleet, ferret out the cause and end it. If the lifeguards around your shop are not standing by
their towers, do something about it. s