Safety, health and environment everywhere

It was Sunday morning, but I woke up early, so I went to prepare breakfast. I was very hungry.  I wanted to have a heavy breakfast: an ‘omelette special’!

As we all know, before we start to cook anything, we first have to prepare all the ingredients and get the equipment we need to make the food. However, that Sunday morning, I didn’t prepare well. I just got a pan and filled it with oil – I wanted to fry some chips. I switched the cooker on to ‘high’ to heat the oil quickly for the chips.  I was really rushing things.

Just as I was about to put the potato pieces into the pan, the pan slipped and a lot of hot oil was spilt, some of it on my both legs!  I got badly burnt. My wife came to help me, and she immediately cleaned the oil off my legs, using olive oil and sugar. But, guess what? Even though I was in quite a lot of pain, I didn’t want to go to hospital because I thought it would all soon be fine!

My wife became angry with me and made me go to the hospital for medical help. When I got to the hospital, the staff there were clearly worried about me, and the burns on my legs. The doctor checked me carefully, and then the nurses bandaged my legs. The doctor thanked me for coming to the hospital so quickly after the accident.  I immediately gave the credit to my wife, of course, as she had made me to go to the hospital!

For the two weeks after my accident, I had to go to the hospital every second day to have my medical dressings changed. If I hadn’t asked for, and been given, that medical help, it would have been a very different story.

I learned a lot of things from my Sunday ‘cooking disaster’.  It is always better to prevent accidents from happening by preparing things well, and in advance, and checking frequently to be sure everything is in good order. When accidents happen, please remember to assess how serious the issue is, and to go to the hospital for medical help as quickly as you can.

I learned this lesson the hard way, but you can learn it in an easier way!

Reducing hazards at work

Three Mountains is working with Eco Emploi to create a series of e-courses on Health, Safety and Environment (SHE). I am working on the e-course ‘Hazards and safety in the workplace’. It focuses mainly on the health and safety hazards found at typical worksites and helps course participants to identify those hazards. The e-course describes the main ways to reduce or eliminate hazards at work. Working on this e-course is teaching me a lot.

My Three Mountains’ colleagues are also working on the other SHE courses. We regularly share the new information we are learning about these topics with each other. Did you know there are different types of fire extinguishers for different types of fires?

We hope to finalize the whole Eco Emploi project in July this year. I hope that when these e-courses are ready for the public to see and use, that you will have time to follow them, so you avoid learning the hard way as I did that Sunday morning!

Nehemie Nkurunziza