Wheels in Motion January 2019 - When does an injury stop?

What's your Plans?

Welcome to another year...

I hope that you all made it through the festive period with nothing more than an additional couple of kilo’s from eating too much or a headache from having one or two too many Xmas drinks.

It’s about this time of year Safety Nerds start to look at what they are going to do during the year.
For us it’s more of the same... all of our Safety Speakers are starting to line up workplace visits to share our stories. I’m personally looking at other ways that I can share my messages with workplaces, a Blog, a Book, some Social Media posts.

You see we all learn in different ways. Some people learn by reading off a blackboard or a book, others learn by seeing or hearing a story and some of us learn simply by watching how something is done.

Your challenge as a safety nerd is to work out what you need to provide for your people to learn. Get some books and give them to people, share some blogs and stories, or get one of our safety speakers out on a regular basis to show your people the result of a workplace injury or fatality.

When does an injury stop?

Ok so here is an interesting one for you to think about.
If someone gets hurt at work does the injury start and stop there?

The answer is NO…

Some injuries have ongoing and lasting effects.

About 12 months ago I knocked my toe on a table leg, it scratched the top of the toe and I put a band aid on it. It healed a few weeks later and I thought that was it. But the wound then reopened and then it healed again.

This happened a few times during the year so I showed my GP and she referred me to a wound specialist.

The wound specialist looked at it and said straight away "You have Osteomyelitis in the joint and we need to take that toe off."

Fast forward a week or so and I am admitted to hospital and my second left toe was amputated.
It’s healed nicely and there is no sign of the infection.

I asked the surgeon if I was not in a wheelchair would the joint have got infected?

He said "No probably not!"

Ok, so I got hurt 20 plus years ago and the initial injury is now starting to cause other injuries and complications!...

That really sucks!

Don’t hurt yourselves people!

TWO Interesting Questions...

I had a busy end of the year. I was travelling a lot and got to meet a heap of people.
But I wanted to share a couple of questions that I got asked over the December period.

1. The first one was about Compo. I was at a site and a person said to me that "If you get hurt at work you receive Compo for it."

I decided to try and change this person's view on compo so I asked them....
"How much would you take never to be able to walk again?"

My jaw dropped when this person said...
"I’d take $250,000.00" he said "That would pay off my house and I could buy a new Landcruiser."

I waited for a second to see if he was joking (He wasn’t) and then I said to him "Are you serious?" (He was).

I tried to make him understand that after he paid his house off and bought his new Landcruiser he would have limited or no employment opportunities, he might be in constant pain, he would not be able to do the things he does now and he might have to pay other people to do things for him!

This is the frustrating thing about Compensation, some people don’t realise that there is no amount of money that will make up for the way an injury changes your life!

2. The second question is one I have mentioned before, I had a guy say to me "Because your legs don’t work have you ever thought about getting them cut off?"

I said to this person...

"No... I’d be pretty pissed off if they cut my legs off then came up with a cure for spinal cord injury."

Thought these were worth sharing.

12 Months Ago… & Now

by Alan Newey

After years of training and the advancement of bionics, I can now do something I thought was gone forever on News Years Day in 2018. (Have a beer with my right arm)
Happy Days..

One year on…..Sharing safety presentations around Australia and we forget to look after ourselves.
Not being home and travelling meant I did not wear the arm enough causing a crystal breakdown.

(Crystal breakdown - The crystal holds the signal to talk to the software training program on the computer. We had to charge and drain the arm over 10 days to regenerate the crystal and signal. Not always possible when travelling so much.)

So to all out there... do everything you can to keep others safe but don’t forget to look after yourself as well.

A unhealthy YOU means we affect our families again.

I don't know if I could cope with that again.