Three deaths in a single day prove demolition still has much to learn.
As a career journalist, I could have chosen just about any industry to focus upon. In a near 30-year career, I have written about everything from restaurants to office equipment. But when I first set foot on a demolition site some quarter century ago, it felt like I’d come home.
From the very outset, I loved the camaraderie and the on-site banter; I loved the cursing and swearing that seemed to pepper every on-site conversation; I loved the rough, toughness of the men (and, increasingly, women) that made the industry so endlessly fascinating.
But the constant fly in an otherwise beguiling ointment has always been the industry’s health and safety track record. And there are times that it is hard to love a sector that maims and kills those that work within around it with such frequency and alacrity.
Tuesday of this week was just one such time. In two separate incidents, the global demolition industry unnecessarily and avoidably lost three of its number.
Yes, those accidents were both in the US. But show me a national demolition industry that claims a 100% safety record, and I will show you a liar.
We (and I would include myself in this) are very quick to point accusing fingers at the Chinese for their questionable top down demolition methods; we can rest easy knowing that it wasn’t in our backyard that 29 local people were killed by a debris truck; we can snigger at the TV exploits of a gung-ho blaster and his cowboy shtick; and we can smugly cook up a whole host of reasons why an accident on New Zealand’s largest demolition project was inevitable.
But while I do believe that the UK demolition industry’s safety initiatives are currently setting the global standard, I am mindful that this sector is not without sin, as recent high-profile incidents have highlighted all too clearly.
Furthermore, accidents are not just an internationally universal issue. They are also a universal pay-grade issue in which every part of the demolition employment chain is equally culpable:
• The company directors that choose profit over safety by cutting back on training expenditure.
• The site managers that choose speed and expediency over safety by cutting corners.
• The site operatives that choose complacency over safety by thinking good enough is good enough.
Before I sign off, let’s get a little interactive. Whether you’re on site, in the office or at home while you’re reading this, take a look around and focus on the first person you see whether they’re a colleague, friend or family member. Now try to imagine how you’d feel if they weren’t there tomorrow.
There are three families, three sets of friends, three sets of colleagues experiencing that for real right now.
And that is why, for all its abiding appeal, I love the demolition industry just a little bit less this morning.
Let’s be careful out there.
