EHS Unplugged: Emergency Planning

VelocityEHS talks about emergency planning.

Video Transcript

I want to tell a story today about a real chemical emergency that I experienced during my time as a Global EHS Coordinator. We had a guy who, at the end of his shift, he had some leftover chemicals in his bucket. He dumped them into a drum of waste, and then he went home. Sometime after he’d left, one of his coworkers happened to find that drum, noticed that not only was it bulging out, almost at the seams, but it was hot to the touch. He told his supervisor about it, and luckily, they were able to track down the safety data sheets for the chemicals involved very quickly.

They saw that it was an incompatible chemical mixture; it was highly reactive. And with the help of local emergency responders, they were able to contain the temperature of that and prevent a potentially explosive reaction from happening. My key takeaway from that day that has always been with me is to always make sure that the system that I use for providing HazCom information and emergency response information worked as efficiently as possible.

When it comes to Emergency Response, make every second count.