by HSEI Training
Hopefully you never have to deal with this situation but if an incident were to occur in your workplace, would you know what you need to do right there and then? It’s important that you, your managers, supervisors and workers do. There are certain circumstances when you can disturb the site of an incident, and some when you should leave it untouched.
Under the current OHS legislation, incident sites must be preserved and left undisturbed until an investigator (or inspector if relevant) arrives.
However, there are some situations when the requirement not to disturb the site does not apply, these are when:
it is necessary to assist an injured person
making the site safe to minimise the risk of a further notifiable incident occurring
taking any action associated with a police investigation
taking any action for which an inspector or regulator has given permission, or
removing a deceased person
It's important to note that in nearly every case throughout Canada and the US, where a scene has been disturbed outside of the above situations, the court has issued out a conviction against the offending company - and in some circumstances also individuals who failed to comply with this legal requirement.
Even when the motivation for disturbing the scene was to protect the safety of others - which arguably fits one of the exceptions to the don't disturb incident scenes rule - if other measures could have been taken to accomplish the same goal without essentially disturbing the incident scene - then the result has been more often than not a breach of the rule.
Moving evidence without reason does nothing to help prevent future accidents. It also puts you at risk of being charged under the Occupational Health & Safety Act. If evidence is moved or tampered with for whatever reason investigators may arrive at an incorrect conclusion about the accident causes, and will have done nothing to improve workplace safety.
Interested in Knowing More?
For in-depth advice about risk management, please contact one of our expert team today. https://www.hseigroup.com/contact.