Safety is one of those topics that is important to everyone, but most don’t pay it the attention it deserves. It’s easy to cut corners, until the corners kill you. Or one of your workers.

In the December 2013 issue of Cleaner, I wrote about a worker in Chicago who died when a surge of stormwater swept him down the 30-inch sewer line he was working in. He had removed his safety harness to clean a small area he couldn’t otherwise reach. It was innocent enough, and well-intentioned, but it ended up being a fatal mistake.

That column prompted a response from a wastewater treatment operator in Tennessee:

“On five of the most recent projects and programs I have been involved with, there have been workplace fatalities,” he wrote. “Two of them were incidents where more than one worker was killed.

“One multiple-fatality incident was caused by a superintendent’s deliberate decision to use incorrect anchors to hold forms in place. Two men were killed and two seriously injured. The other was a result of an explosion at a refinery. Our employees were there as professional services contractors. Fifteen of them didn’t go home again. The company president had to make 15 phone calls of the type you never want to have to make. In one day.

“However, in my experience, most workplace injuries and fatalities are caused by decisions made, and actions taken or not taken, by the workers themselves. I believe this is in large part due to a mindset, prevalent among people who do the kind of work that can get you killed, that being mindful about safety somehow makes you a sissy; that it wastes time and reduces productivity. A common rationalization for not bothering with safety practices is that it isn’t likely there will be a problem. To which I always respond, you don’t plan for the likely. It may not be likely that the manhole you are about to enter hasn’t enough oxygen to support life, or that there is H2S in concentration at the bottom. But is it worth your life to keep gambling on that? For too many workers, such gambles are in fact acceptable, even necessary.”

Safety isn’t something to gamble on. It may seem like the odds are in your favor, and they may be – most of the time. But all it takes is the one fluke occurrence, the one unlucky break, the bad deal, and the house wins the final hand. Gambling is fine if you have a few extra dollars to lose, but when you gamble with your life, the best you can do is break even. No one has an extra life to wager.

There are always lessons to be learned from these tragedies. It’s too bad more companies don’t put a greater emphasis on teaching employees these lessons before they go out in the field, and then through continuing safety education talks and reviews. There’s no upside to learning about the importance of keeping your harness on at all times while you’re being pushed through a pipe gasping for your last breaths.

Put safety first. Make it a priority for everyone on your crew. It’s the best thing you can do for them.