Accident Investigation - Part 2

If you are investigating a workplace error or accident and you wish to determine if sleep deprivation or fatigue were at play, you will want to consider the following:

How many hours had this employee been at work? Research has shown that after 16 hours, the fatigue, and therefore, the risk, rises markedly.

How many hours had this employee been awake prior to coming to work? The longer this time, the higher level of sleepiness and fatigue one would expect.

How much sleep did this employee get in the day or week leading up to this day? A variety of personal and/or work circumstances can lead to minimal sleep for a lengthy period with the resulting high level of sleep deprivation.

Is this employee suffering from an undiagnosed sleep disorder? Some polls suggest that a majority of those with sleep disorders do not even realize they have a disorder much less get treatment for it. Undiagnosed sleep disorders result in high levels of sleepiness day and night.

Has this employee had any near misses in the last several weeks or months leading up to this day or have any other employees observed sleepiness in this employee?

Strategies for Health and Safety

Managers, occupational health and safety professionals and risk managers should be thoroughly versed in the behaviors associated with sleepiness and fatigue. This will allow them to recognize those employees and times of the day or night when they need to be particularly vigilant so as to prevent errors and accidents.

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