If you've ever been the first one on the scene at an automobile accident or have been working next to someone who has had a traumatic injury at work, then you know how important it is to know what to do.
An emergency can be a stressful time and sometimes for some strange reason your brain gets overwhelmed you and can’t remember even the basics.
Knowing what to do in an emergency is just as important as knowing how to prevent them from happening in the first place. All too often bad situations are made worse when individuals are not prepared for something severe to happen.
These four points will help plan and prepare you and your crew in the event of an emergency.
1. Choose An Emergency Response Drill Interval And Stick To It
How often you schedule emergency drills will depend on several factors. Hold an emergency drill at least every six months. The frequency of your emergency drills may depend on workplace risk factors, location or crew availability. Regardless of the frequency, make sure that drills are scheduled at regular intervals and update current emergency plans.
2. Make Emergency Response Drills Unplanned On The Day
Planned emergency drills — the ones that are expected by employees are easier and quicker to undertake than unplanned ones. Unplanned emergency drills require a bit more work. An ineffective drill and “going through the motions” is simply a huge waste of time and effort for you and your crew. If you’re doing to perform a drill for you and your employees, make it count.
3. Add Some Unexpected Elements
Switch things up; make certain members of your crew are unavailable (which could happen in a real emergency), or have different types of emergencies drill performed i.e. a medical emergency or a severe storm etc. You may add different conditions to the emergency, such as multiple emergencies happening at once (such as a wild fire with a cardiac arrest of a crew member).
4. Establish Success Goals
It’s easy enough to just run a standard emergency drill and keep a record of the event for compliance purposes. Establish your goals beforehand. Do you want better communication during the drill(?) or better and faster evacuation to emergency evacuation points from site?
You want the emergency drill to provide valuable information that will protect your crew and what you want to achieve with each emergency drill?
Practice! Practice! Practice! Keeping calm and knowing how to respond to an emergency may save your life or those around you one day.