Several recent posts describing injuries that should have never happened reenforce the point that "safety rules" are pretty useless if they are not followed. Jim Leslie's hand injury and the far more ghastly near throat cutting sustained by Dennis Doebler, while being most regrettable, were both unnecessary.
The other day I was sitting at a stop light and a woman on a bicycle pulled up along side. She had a child in one of those kiddie cart things trailing along behind her bike. She was watching the light for the cross traffic and as soon as it turned yellow, she jumped the gun and started across the street just as a guy coming the other way booted it trying to beat the yellow light. She made it across ahead of the car but just barely. The car missed the kiddie cart by no more than an inch. The look of horror on the drivers face was frightening. But the woman on the bike never saw that or even realized how close she had just come to getting her kid killed.
Down the street from me a couple of kids have set up a skate ramp with metal pipes on the edges and there is always a crowd of kids flying around on skateboards and roller blades. They have a great time. Only thing is, the driveway is very short and dumps right into a very busy street. Every so often one of them fails to stick his ollie (whatever that means) and his board goes flying out into the street. And more often than not, the kid goes bouncing into the street too. They usually jump up with their tails wagging, dumb grins on their faces, and eagerly trot back up the driveway for more. But this is another tragic "accident" just waiting to happen.
Either of these two situations could easily result in serious injury or death. And both would have been totally preventable. Just like Dennis and Jim's injuries were totally preventable. There are times when you look at an event like this and it's hard to figure out how it could have been prevented. But these are not among them.
I hope this does not sound preachy because that is not the intent. The intent is simply to beg you all to be careful in your work and lives and pay just a bit more attention to things that might put you on "the list". You don't want to be on that list. Trust me on this. I know what I'm talking about…
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