Candace Carnahan, motivational safety speaker, took her leg off on the stage in front of more than 200 people at the Independent Well Servicing Safety Stand Down. Humorous and very deep Carnahan gave an influential speech at the 小蓝视频east College鈥檚 Estevan campus.
Through sharing her own unique life lesson Carnahan outlined the importance of some preventive measures each person can take to stay safe at work, home and everywhere else.
The tragedy happened to Carnahan when she was 21 years old. It was a work incident that took place at the paper mill in New Brunswick, where she was working during that summer.
鈥淥n that day, it was August 11, I got caught. And it wasn鈥檛 by my supervisor. I put my foot down when I went to step overtop of the belt, and I put it down in the exact wrong place at the exact wrong time. And just like that everything changed for me. Life, as I knew it, was over,鈥� Carnahan said.
That day Carnahan lost her lower left leg. If not for one of the workers who manually stopped the machine by hitting the emergency-stop button, she might have lost her life. But what was even more influential for Carnahan - the incident was preventable. The guard was down, the automatic stop sensor was disabled, and everybody at the mill would take a short cut, stepping over the low-standing conveyer instead of going around it. Workers always used to get away with that, but in Carnahan鈥檚 case that one out of a million chance was one too many.
鈥淚 came home from the hospital two weeks after the injury. Of course, I had to go for the therapy. And I couldn鈥檛 have a prosthetic leg right away,鈥� Carnahan said.
It took 10 tough months to learn how to walk again, but Carnahan had enough courage not only to get back to life and backpack and travel the world, but also to turn her experience into a transformational message.
When it comes to safety, Carnahan insists that most tragedies are incidents, not accidents. They are preventable and usually happen because people make wrong decisions, misjudge situations, but more important - they don鈥檛 think that anything bad may happen, and people take chances when they don鈥檛 need to put thier life and well小蓝视频 at risk. 听
鈥淭he world is very, say, out of control right now,鈥� Carnahan said. 鈥淏ut we鈥檝e got so much control over so many things every day. How you drive to work, how you make sure your windshield is cleared, deciding to put your phone away in the car, looking at situations with fresh eyes.鈥�
Carnahan insisted each individual in the conference hall should change at least one unsafe routine practice right after the presentation to make life safer.
鈥淚f something is broken, fix it! Fix it the right away. Fix it now, and don鈥檛 wait until something goes wrong, when you go 鈥榓h, I knew it was gonna happen. Should have done that a little bit earlier鈥�,鈥� Carnahan said.
Carnahan also outlined three main safety-related rights each Canadian worker has.
鈥淭he right to know: the right to know the rules, the right to know how to work safely. The right to participate is another one. And that鈥檚 the right to participate in the joint health safety committee, should you choose to, the right to participate in the workforce. And then there is the right to refuse unsafe work. That鈥檚 the right to say 鈥榥o鈥� if you feel uncomfortable,鈥� Carnahan said.
In the end, Carnahan made the entire auditorium stand up and repeat her main message: 鈥淚f you see something. Say something.鈥� She believes that if people stand up for each other and bring unsafe practices to attention, it will help to change the statistics, according to which every day in Canada three people die in work-related incidents.听听听
Independent Well Servicing Ltd. has been organizing the Safety Stand Down for four years. The event is open not only for their employees, but also for other oil companies鈥� personnel from the southeast for free. Independent Well Servicing field supervisor/marketing Brian Crossman explained what makes them invest time and money into these events.
鈥淲e give the guys the tools they need out at the rig to do the job safely, but sometimes it鈥檚 more than just a tool, sometimes it鈥檚 how they think about safety and their motivation towards doing a safe job and how they care about each other,鈥� Crossman said.
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