In order to rate the severity aspect of risk assessment many organisations make a distinction between various types of incident.
Ill-health — hazard with the potential to cause ill-health. Typical examples of ill-health conditions include occupational asthma, asbestosis, hand arm vibration syndrome.
Injury accident — may be subdivided into fatals, major injuries, over three day injuries and minor injuries. These are safety related events and include cuts, bruises, fractures, amputations etc.
Dangerous occurrence - the precise definition of a dangerous occurrence will vary from country to country and their national accident reporting requirements It is used to cover an undesirable event (as specified by the national government), such as a scaffold collapse which does not result in a reportable injury but could have done so, in slightly different circumstance,
for example:
- Collapse, overturning or failure of lifting machinery.
- Collapse of a building or structure, explosion or fire, escape of flammable substances and escape of substances
A Near Miss (or incident) is an unplanned, uncontrolled event that has not led to injury, damage or some other loss this time, but could have in slightly different circumstances. Examples include: articles falling near to people, short-circuits on electrical equipment. It is critical to record and analyse near misses as they are warnings of more serious accidents to come unless corrective action is taken - see Accident Ratios
Damage only accidents are accidents which only cause damage to plant, materials, and premises. Workplace fires are a good example of such an event, where no one is injured but there is considerable property, materials and equipment damage.
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