5.1 Introduction to Incident Investigations
Employers are responsible for investigating workplace incidents. Before the formal incident investigation begins, the employer needs to take the necessary steps to meet both internal and external reporting requirements.
Pre-Investigation
- Has the employer provided the injured parties with the necessary level of first aid and called 9-1-1 if required? Don’t forget that witnesses may need support as well.
- Has the employer notified internal stakeholders of the recent incident? These stakeholders may include human resources, health and safety representatives or committee members, union representatives, and the leadership team.
- Has the employer notified the external stakeholders of the recent incident? These stakeholders may include family members of the injured parties, third party contractors/employers, temporary agencies, legal counsel, head-office personnel, law enforcement, workers compensation and necessary government agencies.
Workers Compensation
Regardless of an employer’s location, there are reporting requirements following a known workplace injury or illness. In Ontario, for example, the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) requires an employer to submit a Form 7 within three days of being notified of an individuals work related illness or injury. Review the “Injured at Work” brochure to become familiar with the injured worker reporting expectations of WSIB.
Additional Resources
Injured at Work? A Guide to Reporting Injured Workers and Employers
Government Agencies
When preparing the emergency contact sheet at work, employers need to ensure they include information relating to government agencies that need to be contacted in the event of a workplace incident or death. In Ontario, for example, employers must submit a written report to the Ministry of Labour (MOL) within 48 hours of a critical injury. Refer to the Ministry of Labour’s website to become familiar with their definition of a critical injury.
Incident investigations are intended to uncover all of the key facts about how and why an incident occurred so that action can be taken to prevent it happening again. Not conducting the investigation in a careful and thorough manner can undermine the results and create the risk of a repeat incident. Any incident where significant injury occurs should be thoroughly investigated, but there is value in investigating minor injury and near miss events as well, as they can reveal important insights that might prevent a future injury. Let’s look at the incident at a Canadian sawmill to learn more about the impact of workplace incidents.
Story: Incident at a Canadian Sawmill
On January 20, 2012, a massive explosion at the Babine sawmill in Burns Lake in northern British Columbia killed two workers and injured 20 others. The explosion, powerful enough to blow off the mill’s roof and send a giant fireball into the sky, was caused by a buildup of wood dust in the mill’s atmosphere. Ryan Clay, a worker at the mill, said the dust had built up to dangerous levels. “You couldn’t see across the mill, that’s how bad the dust levels were. Even with the fans going full blast, the dust was just horrendous.”[1] It was the largest sawmill explosion in BC history until the Lakeland sawmill in Prince George exploded three months later.
In incidents this serious, the investigation becomes the responsibility of the provincial government, in this case WorkSafeBC. It took 19 days for WorkSafe investigators to gain access to the site, first because of RCMP investigations of criminal acts and then because of unsafe conditions. The investigation was finally completed on November 29, 2012, with a recommendation to lay charges against the employer under BC’s health and safety legislation. Nevertheless, the Criminal Justice Branch (which makes all final decisions about prosecutions) decided it could not proceed with charges due to significant flaws in the investigation procedure. A review of the investigation found it had failed to collect all pertinent information, interview certain key witnesses, and follow due process in interviews with managers. It also came to light that WorkSafe inspectors had been to the mill a month before the incident and, while they issued citations for violation of safety rules, they did not highlight a risk of explosion from the wood dust.[2]
Government investigations serve a different purpose than incident investigations conducted by employers, as government investigators have a legal mandate to determine if penalties under the Act are warranted. Nevertheless, the failures of the Babine investigation show what can go wrong if an investigation is not conducted properly. This chapter will explain how to conduct an incident investigation.
“Incident Investigation” in Health and Safety in Canadian Workplaces by Jason Foster and Bob Barneston, published by AU Press is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, unless otherwise noted.
- Adams, C., & Rowney, M. (2014, October 8). What was behind the deadly B.C. sawmills explosions? Global News. http://globalnews.ca/news/1604346/16x9-investigation-what-was-behind-the-deadly-b-c-sawmills-explosions/ ↵
- Dyble, J. (2014). Babine Explosion Investigation: Fact Pattern and Recommendations. Government of British Columbia. ↵
