This year will be the 12th year that I have written a monthly newsletter.
I try and share my views and thoughts on safety, I share how my life has changed because of the fact that I use a wheelchair
to get around, I try to give an insight into what it is like to get hurt at work, I talk about any experiences the other members of our team have had… Woody
Why?
Because I’ve lived life with an injury for nearly 30 years, I don’t think there has been a day since I got hurt that I have wished it did not happen. I can be going through my day quite happily and all it takes is for me not to be able to reach something, or not to be able to get somewhere in my wheelchair and immediately I think...
'If only I had not got hurt' or 'I wish I could stand up'
Most of us have an injury at some stage in our lives, you sprain an ankle or cut yourself chopping some veggies. These injuries are a minor inconvenience for a few weeks. But a serious injury changes your life for the rest of your life!
I guess that's why I do what I do, I try and show others that getting hurt is not a good thing and that it will change every bit of your life and affect the people around you too.
So bear with me for another year of random waffling from me and the rest of
the CNBSafe team.
Who knows, it might even stop someone from getting hurt!
Having just experienced the loss of my son Alex for the 7th time, our family lives with this pain daily but January in particular is when our hearts break all over again.
Often we will hear, ‘time will heal’ or ‘in time you will move forward’ or ‘it will get better’.
Are you
kidding me?
We cannot run, and we cannot hide – it’s there all the time and we have no choice but to confront it head on. These comments are generally from people who haven’t experienced such a loss. And from people that cannot put our family situation into perspective.And from people that should know better. And from people that should be protecting their own by ensuring they have best safety practices in
place
As an advocate for workplace safety I work tirelessly to ‘serve & protect’ particularly our young apprentices, yet we recently hear that the government in SA is looking to scale down supervision for this vulnerable group.
Again, ‘Are you kidding me?’
Not on my watch Sir!
Our kids are NOT a disposable commodity and are worth more than they are afforded.
We had an interesting Christmas school holidays. My daughter rolled her ankle on a trampoline and ended up with a minor fracture. She had to wear a Moon Boot for a few weeks and was unable to roller blade, ride her bike, jump on the trampoline.
The first week was a bit of a novelty, she enjoyed the attention and showing her friends her boot and crutches. By Week 2 the boredom had set in and she started to get frustrated at not being able to do things that her friends were doing.
Week 3 was a nightmare… She was over it and we were over her!
But during a conversation we had while sitting watching some TV she said to me
"Dad I know how you feel sometimes when you can’t do things that you want to."
Which made me think that some people don’t really understand how an injury changes things until you actually experience it yourself!
Yesterday I got a message from my son, he has been renovating the bathroom in his house. He was installing a shower screen with a mate and somehow they twisted the glass too far and "Boom" the glass panel shattered and glass went everywhere. My son got a couple of small pieces in his hair and
his mate sliced his finger bad enough to need a trip to the hospital.
I was speaking to my son about it and I asked him...
'How much a new shower screen was going to cost?'.
He told me and then I asked...
'How much for them to install it for you?'
The point I was
making is that sometimes it’s better and safer to leave it to the experts, the cost of having someone install it was minimal compared to a new shower screen, 4 hours waiting at hospital and a couple days lost work for my son’s mate.
Get in Early in 2020
Last year we had a few people call us at the last minute
to arrange for a Safety Speaker to visit their workplace.
If you have any plans for a safety speaker this year please get in touch NOW rather than leaving it to the last minute and possibly missing out.
We now have a new page on our website where you can download any images for your use to promote a Safety Speaker visit to your business or workplace.
This is where you will find high resolution corporate and not so corporate images of all our Safety Speakers.
There are Posters for each Speaker that you
can print, add date, session times and location to post around your work site. Or even use these images to create your own flyers & posters with your branding.
Make sure you contact us if there is something specific that you would like.
These are the locations we will be in during the next couple of months. If you would like someone to visit your workplace please get in touch and we will see if we can do it while we are there. It will save you some travel costs….
I sent a message to the other Safety Speakers late last year and asked them to give me a statement or a sentence about what they enjoy about sharing their stories.
