Why We Share

Summer is here and we all need to pre-plan for safety. We can’t assume everyone knows everything already. This is a share I received from my good friend SH on Friday of last week and he received it from his teammate Kathy. Please review it  and share throughout our circles in an attempt to help others become more aware.

Remember: THE SINGLE MOST EFFECTIVE HAZARD CONTROL IS PREVENTION. Thanks for making a difference…

A message from Kathy…

Yesterday I attended Mike’s Safety Awareness training class. As I sat in the class I asked the question of why would we report Safety Awareness issues that occur at home or are otherwise not related to work to which Mike answered, to make others aware and possibly help someone else. I debated on whether I should share this or not but with that in mind… 

Last night, about 10 PM, I received a frantic call from my niece Janet, who lives in Rome GA. It took me a few minutes to understand what was going on but the story goes like this: My niece’s daughter (Abby) and 4 of her friends decided to go hiking at Noccalula Falls in Gadsden AL yesterday to celebrate finishing their first year of college on Monday. Gadsden is about 45 minutes to an hour from Rome, GA. Once they got to the trails (at some point) they decided it would be fun to hike down into the gorge and get behind the falls. These are just young adults (18 and 19 y/o), full of life and seemingly invincible and didn’t see any danger in what they were doing. They made it down to the river and were skipping (jumping) from rock to rock in the water to get behind the falls. At some point Abby became too scared to make the next jump and her best friend went in front of her with the words – It’s Okay Abby, nothing’s going to happen – when she landed on the next rock and slipped and fell into the water and was quickly swept away. As Abby said, she was there one moment and she was gone the next. Others in the group called 911 immediately and the two who had made it across the water ran to try to find her. They were in a remote area that was hard to get to so it took time but EMTs and Police arrived. After finally locating the young girl and reportedly spending more than an hour in lifesaving efforts this young lady was pronounced dead at the scene. The others had become stranded on the rocks at the bottom of the gorge and had to be rescued and pulled from the gorge by ropes. 

What started out just 6 hours earlier for this group of 5 young adults, who on Monday where all still in class taking finals and officially finished their first year of college, ended in a tragedy. They all worked and attended college full time, they all still live(d) at home with their parents. These were good kids that didn’t have the awareness to see any danger in what they were doing. Now they’ll take this memory with them the rest of their lives.  

So I’m sharing my “home” story in hopes that my fellow employees will take this to their home and share it with their family in hopes that this tragedy will somehow help in someone else’s life.

Thanks for the share, PT!