Safety Begins At
Home
by Charlie Wade
The Royal
Society of Health and Safety Inspectors’
dinner dance was the highlight of Ray’s
moribund life. It was neither the friendship nor
companionship he liked, but the planning and
execution of the event. It was without doubt, the
safest (and possibly the healthiest) dinner dance
in the world, being planned and coordinated by
the society’s most elite members.
At his table,
Ray inspected the knives (regulation level three
sharpness, the potential risk of minor cuts
minimised), the forks (category two bluntness, a
small risk of piercing) and the table cloth (50%
wool to minimise slippage.)
Satisfied, he
surveyed the room. His colleagues were mingling,
drinking and walking with clipboards. A few of
them inspected various items with tape measures
and approving nods. He noticed Greg Nappel, the
society’s president, begin his approach to
the stage.
The background
noise in the room, played at precisely twenty
eight decibels, faded. The minglers and drinkers
took their tables, some of them inspecting the
chair legs before they sat. Ray watched Greg walk
to the stage then climb the reinforced, two-handled
ramp clearly labeled, ‘For Trained
Operatives Only.’ Then, he walked to the
ergonomic podium, its height previously adjusted
via risk assessment to not cause Greg any
discomfort.
The microphone
hissed as he spoke. “Good evening ladies,
gentlemen and Health and Safety operatives.”
The same joke each year, but it always got a
laugh. “Before the annual ‘Safest
Safety Worker’ competition, I’d like to
say a few words.”
Then, just as
Greg put his hand on the podium, it happened.
Richard
Binwell, the North East Region’s most senior
Health and Safety Inspector, had inspected the
podium for safety fastenings, rough edges,
electric and static earthing and blinding by
reflection from the hall’s spotlights.
However, he hadn’t checked the topple point:
the point at which if pressure was applied, the
podium would topple. It wasn’t his fault. It
wasn’t on the checklist. It wasn’t on
his clipboard.
Via a
combination of poor footing, pre-speech sherry
and a heavy hand, Greg’s weight on the
podium tipped it. Losing his balance, he leaned
further forwards, helplessly grabbing for the
podium as it fell.
His weight now
too far forward, in one last desperate attempt he
lunged for the podium. Mis-timing it, he pushed
the podium and fell after it. Falling from the
stage, the podium landed first on the head of
Western-Super-Mare’s safety representative,
then onto the lead table, knocking over two
bottles of wine.
In the rush to
stand up, the other members of the lead table
capsized it onto its side, squashing the
representative for Norwich. The falling Greg
landed in a pool of wine, closely followed by the
ripped power cables from the microphone and
podium lights.
The fatal
fizzing shock he received created panic amongst
the onlookers. Two were crushed to death in the
stampede, while sixteen others gained minor
injuries including finger dislocations, broken
limbs and trampled toes. Poor Ray somehow
received a freak castration after falling
knackers first into a pile of category three
forks while others trampled him in their haste to
flee.
The Newspapers
had not only a field day but a whole field week.
The annual dinner dance was cancelled
indefinitely and a period of mourning set aside
for the ex-president and the other deceased.
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