Research into the primary causes of our accidents over the past few years has revealed there are six major types of accidents. We'd like to focus on these so-called BIG SIX to significantly reduce these types of accidents or, better still, to prevent them. In this toolbox meeting, we'll take a closer look at one of the BIG SIX: contact with protruding objects.

Accidents caused by protruding objects are a frequent occurrence. But what exactly do they involve?

Examples of activities in which you may come into contact with protruding objects include the following:

• Moving or transporting an object;
• Working in a trench;
• Construction and/or demolition;
• ………

Severity of the accident

Accidents that involve contact with a protruding object are a fairly frequent occurrence at Heijmans. The head is the body part that is most commonly injured during these accidents: you may suffer a cut, for example. These accidents are caused by:

• Bumping into protruding items such as threaded rods;
• Bumping into items in trenches, such as pieces of glass;
• Hitting your head on an object when getting back up after bending down.

• Make plans in advance on how to correctly store equipment and materials, and on the best walking and transport routes (construction site setup).  
• Keep the workplace tidy. Remove any items that have come free/been exposed as quickly as possible.
• Make sure there is adequate lighting.
• Place protection around any sharp and protruding parts.

Your own experience:

• Have you ever experienced contact with a protruding object or a near miss? How did this happen?
• What did you learn from that incident? How could it have been prevented?
• What has changed to prevent any repeats?

​​​​​​​​​​​Example of an accident

• An employee got their clothing stuck on a threaded rod. This caused them to lose their balance and step back into the threaded rod. As a result, they injured their calf on the threaded rod.

Questions:

How do you think this accident could have happened?

• Think about any unsafe actions/unsafe behaviour, for example.

How could this accident have been prevented?

• Safe working behaviour/safe actions
• Improvement actions/measures
• Tools/aids