H&S – Why It Matters on Site
World Day for Safety and Health at Work
For Padraic Durham, our HSEQ Manager, the meaning behind World Day for Safety and Health at Work comes from a moment he hasn’t forgotten.
Twenty years ago, he walked into what should have been a routine job on a refrigeration plant. It wasn’t. And he nearly didn’t walk out.
There was no proper planning behind the task. No JSA in place. PPE was minimal and at the time, it didn’t feel unusual, it was just another job to get done.
When he opened a service valve, it failed in his hands. That part wasn’t expected. Ammonia was released instantly, liquid and vapour, filling the plant room and hitting him directly. Paddy’s visibility disappeared almost immediately and his breathing became difficult.
In moments like that, there’s no procedure running through your head, checklist to follow. He worked by instinct, feeling for valves in a space he couldn’t see, forcing isolations without knowing for certain if they were the right ones.
When the release was finally stopped, the expectation was that the safety systems would take over but they didn’t to make matters worse the emergency shower wasn’t working as the water had been isolated, the alarm system had been bypassed and ventilation didn’t respond.
Everything that should have been there wasn’t.
That day changed how he approaches the job and it’s why he moved into risk management.
Not for paperwork. Not for compliance. But to stop situations like that from happening again.
The risks in refrigeration don’t sit in isolation, pressurised systems, toxic and flammable refrigerants, electrical hazards, working at height, exist together.
For Paddy, safety is about removing luck from the equation, it’s in the planning and in being prepared to stop when something doesn’t feel right.
World Day for Safety and Health at Work is a reminder.
Most incidents aren’t the result of one big failure. They come from small, known gaps that are left unaddressed.
He’s seen what happens when they are. And he doesn’t want anyone else to.
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