Pay Attention or You Might Get Hit!

Today's Safety Sunday tip is: Pay attention, or you might get hit! Whenever a person asks me what happened to someone during an accident, one of the most frequent responses I give is that people simply don't pay close enough attention to what they are doing.

Inattention to your surroundings and being distracted leads to injury, just as much as faulty equipment, lack of proper training, improper behavior by co-workers, and lack of workplace assessments and housekeeping.


It is vitally important for employees operating machinery and those working around it to pay attention. Let me offer up some tips all of us can use to help prevent injury:

  1. Check vehicles before use to make sure they are in safe operating condition
  2. Securely and neatly store loose materials
  3. Secure items that are stored at a height
  4. Store heavy objects close to the floor
  5. Open one filing cabinet drawer at a time to prevent a tip-over
  6. Wear the proper personal protective equipment for your environment, such as steel-toed shoes and a hard hat
  7. Always walk behind moving equipment if possible
  8. Never obstruct your vision by overloading moving equipment
  9. Only operate the equipment you are properly trained to use
  10. Make sure all safety devices on your equipment are in good working order before use
  11. Secure all loads and lift them evenly to prevent them from slipping

When our employees are proactive and we, as management, provide proper education on job-specific hazards, conduct safety assessments, address gaps and provide corrective action, the risk of being struck by an object at work is dramatically reduced.
Be Anchored to Safety by paying attention!