4.1 The first hours: report, preserve, document

1 Safety first, and it is a rule not a slogan

OSHA's Incident [Accident] Investigations: A Guide for Employers puts one instruction in a box of its own before the four steps begin: “Before investigating, all emergency response needs must be completed and the incident site must be safe and secure for entry and investigation.”

The reason is not administrative. Secondary casualties among responders and investigators are a recurring pattern in confined spaces, in trenches and around energized equipment. The condition that hurt the first person is usually still there.

2 The reporting clock: what, how fast, and to whom

29 CFR 1904.39(a) is short and absolute, and it applies to every employer covered by the OSH Act — including the ones exempt from keeping a log.

Three definitions decide close calls. In-patient hospitalization means a formal admission to the in-patient service of a hospital or clinic for care or treatment — an admission for observation or diagnostic testing only is not reportable, under (b)(9) and (b)(10). Amputation, in (b)(11), is the traumatic loss of a limb or other external body part, including fingertip amputations with or without bone loss and parts later reattached — but not avulsions, enucleations, deglovings, scalpings, severed ears or broken teeth. And the clocks start when you learn of the event, or learn that it was work-related, under (b)(7) and (b)(8).

How you report is prescribed too, in (a)(3) and (b)(1): by telephone or in person to the nearest Area Office, by telephone to 1-800-321-OSHA, or through the reporting application on osha.gov. Voicemail, fax and email are explicitly not acceptable.

3 The eight things OSHA asks for

1904.39(b)(2) lists what you give for each reportable event, and having it written down before you dial turns a difficult call into a two-minute one:

1. 1
   The establishment name
2. 2
   The location of the work-related incident
3. 3
   The time of the work-related incident
4. 4
   The type of reportable event — fatality, in-patient hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye
5. 5
   The number of employees who suffered it
6. 6
   The names of those employees
7. 7
   Your contact person and their phone number
8. 8
   A brief description of the work-related incident

Two edge cases are worth knowing in advance. A motor vehicle accident on a public road is not reportable unless it happened in a construction work zone, under (b)(3) — though the case is still recorded. And a work-related fatality or hospitalization caused by a heart attack is reportable; (b)(5) leaves it to the Area Office director to decide whether to investigate.

4 Preserving the scene

Step 1 of the guide is preserve and document. Preserving means physically stopping the scene from being changed — cones, tape, a guard posted — and it competes directly with the strongest instinct on any site, which is to clear up and get going again.

Documenting means capturing what the scene was before that happens: the date of the investigation and who is investigating, the injured employee's name and the injury, whether they are permanent or temporary, and the date and location of the incident — plus video, photographs and a sketch. The guide devotes two appendices to the last two, because a photograph without a scale reference and a sketch without measurements are both nearly useless six months later.

5 What the investigator's kit contains

Appendix B of the guide is a packing list, and its usefulness is that it exists in a box before it is needed. The core of it: a camera and charged batteries, a video or audio recorder, measuring devices in several sizes, a straight-edge ruler to use as a scale reference in photographs, graph paper, a clipboard and pens, flashlight, string, stakes and warning tape, photo marking cones, identification tags, sample containers with seals, and personal protective equipment for the investigator.

Keep the blank investigation forms in the same box. The point of a kit is that nobody has to make five decisions while the site is still full of people who want to start work again.

6 The plan that has to exist beforehand

The guide asks for a written incident investigation plan, prepared before anything happens, covering: how and when management is notified; how OSHA is notified and by whom; who is authorized to notify outside agencies such as fire and police; who conducts investigations and what training they have had; the timetable for completing the investigation and developing recommendations; who receives the recommendations; and who is responsible for implementing corrective actions.

Two situations are named specifically. Where a temporary worker from a staffing agency is involved, both the agency and the host employer should investigate, and each should tell the other promptly. On a multi-employer worksite, the investigation should be shared with each employer on the site.