One of our good friends would continually talk with his family about the importance of safety around the home. I never really paid much attention – even though we stayed with them many times over the past 16 years when we returned to Ft. Worth. After all, what can happen in a house if you just keep your eyes open?
Last week, I spent five days observing a training class for one of the world’s five biggest companies. My role was to provide feedback to presenters; however, I learned a lot during these multiple 12-hour days. Each morning began with a participant delivering a Safety Moment… and I heard several tragic stories about what can happen when employees and contractors fail to follow processes and procedures.
Interestingly, a few days before I found myself running up and down our staircase for probably the thousandth time since we moved into our home. I always looked at this as a great form of exercise, so I’ve typically sprinted up and jogged down. However, on that particular morning my foot caught on the top step and I fell to my knees. If it had been a middle step, I might have gotten hurt. I thought, ‘At my age, maybe I shouldn’t do this anymore.’
Then someone shared a story during the sessions about a man who fell down his staircase and broke his leg in several places. He spent nearly a month in the hospital, endured rehab for three years and missed a lot of work. I committed at that moment to never use my staircase as a treadmill again. Incidentally, this company’s rule is to hold the handrail anytime there are more than two steps. I must say that’s something I had never heard before. I’m in.
