Tragic Tale From Ireland

The Irish Independent newspaper of Tuesday 25th November has a tragic story of two close friends and neighbours who, unfortunately, died together doing something they had done “hundreds of times before.” The pair were inflating a tyre on a tractor one of them owned, in a field, when the accident occurred.

A close friend is quoted as saying, “they would have blown up tyres hundreds of times in the past without a problem. This time something went wrong, horribly wrong”

Link to the story:

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/entire-community-in-deep-shock-over-freak-accident-that-killed-best-friends-30765860.html

A sobering story that reminds us all of the very distinct possibility that something we do as a matter of course and that we have done many times before, may well one day cause us, or others, injury. Our thoughts go out to the two men’s families and many friends.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg433.pdf - Health and Safety Executive

“Safety during tyre inflation in motor vehicle repair” leaflet details safety precautions for dealing with the changing and inflation of the tyres.

Tyre inflation is something that happens on demolition sites and in demolition company garages on a regular basis but ask yourself the following questions;-

• Do you have a risk assessment and method statement to cover this work?
• If you use a tyre repair company with mobile fitters do they have “suitable & sufficient” risk assessments and method statements to cover their work?
• Does the hose repair fitter who deals with machine hose failures have a “suitable & sufficient” risk assessment and method statement, or do you say "It is only the hose guy and he has done this job thousands of times?"
• If the tyres need to be removed and replaced is there a manual handling assessment in place?

When you have done all this and you are satisfied that nothing will go wrong just take a few minutes to consider “What if?”