MY ARTICLE last week and this week covers four of the most common causes of rural accidents and injuries.

The information regarding common causes of rural accidents and proposed steps has been helpfully sourced from information published by Workplace Health and Safety Queensland.

3 – Animal handling and mustering;

Causes of accidents: Using unsuitable equipment, inexperience or lack of understanding (e.g. horse riding, animal temperament and how to handle it), poorly maintained yards, yards not adequately designed for tasks.

Practical steps: ensure yards are designed to include escape routes, where possible utilise levers that are external, before allocating a rider to a horse determine the skill and competency of the rider (allocate accordingly), identify training needs and requirements for the handling of animals, ensure yards are designed with both task and safety in mind, always wear a helmet when horse riding.

4 – Hazardous manual tasks (e,g. uncoupling equipment, bending/reaching for common tasks, lifting and carrying loads and working in awkward positions)

Causes of accidents: work surfaces that are too high/low, slippery or uneven ground causing trips / falls/slips, inadequate plant and equipment for lifting, inadequate training and induction of workers, repetitive tasks.

Practical steps: ensure work areas suit the tasks (e.g. raise or lower benches to appropriate heights), replace manual lifting with mechanical lifting aids (where appropriate), induct your staff and make sure they have adequate training to work safely, if a task is repetitive then rest and rotate!

Until next week – Keep it Legal!

Katie Caldow
kcaldow@walkerpender.com.au

*The legal information in this article is of a general nature only and not intended to be legal advice to rely upon.