Welcome! I hope this August finds you happy and safe! Today I am going to broach the subject of the most dangerous and deadly part of our industry… Driving. I fully understand that the 40 hours of documented training that we received at the mature age of 16 to 18 years of age fully qualifies […]
Telling Isn’t Training!
Welcome back to this month’s installment about everyone’s favorite topic of safety! I recently was reading a post that intrigued me on a social media. A person who was new to safety wanted to know what was the most prevalent cause of accidents in the oilfield and why. The question was broad and yet evoked […]
Safety and the “Real World”
Greetings and salutations! Welcome to my inaugural column for the Permian Basin Oil & Gas magazine. I am excited to bring you stories, reports, and ideas. Some of the ideas will be new to even my safety colleagues. Just the same, I hope to bring you a refreshing look at what’s new and what’s old. […]
Safe and Sure
By Paul Wiseman “We can dance if we want to… I can act like an imbecile” “Safety Dance,” Men Without Hats, 1982 Those two lines are not consecutive in the song, but for some reason they’re the only ones I remember. They’re pertinent to a story about safety expert Dusty Roach because he’s […]
Standing up for Safety in the Permian
Oil patch safety gets personal for most professionals. By Paul Wiseman Scratch almost any safety professional and you’ll likely find, just under the surface, a horrific work-related tragedy that relentlessly drives everything they do. These images are burned into their psyche with no less force and agony than that of a branding iron searing the […]
Better Safe Than Sorry
By Lana Cunningham Recalcitrant, stubborn, and hard-headed are just a few of the adjectives that could be used to describe oil field workers who refuse to wear required safety devices when on the job. “Dead” could be another word for them. Safety training companies and equipment abound in the Permian Basin and offer every service […]
Of Global Importance
By Darrel Canada Any trip taken overseas is an immersion course in a culture. For a West Texan, a week in India—halfway around the world—is an immersion and then some! For a safety professional such as myself, it’s also a great opportunity to compare the culture of safety, as it exists in the United States, […]
Death by H2S
A negligent company owner gets prison and fines. By Darrel Canada During all the years spent in the oilfield and in training classes I have taught, I’ve always tried to make a difference in people’s mindsets. I want the hard working men and women going back home safe to their families every day. I feel […]
When Caution Counts Most
Winter is the season when driving can be most hazardous and deadly. Take a few moments to review some life-saving precautions. By Darrel Canada On December 5, 2013, I headed to Midland at 9:00 p.m. to be there for a large training class that my company was doing for one of our clients. All of […]
Safety: Struck-by and Caught-between
These two categories of accidents are sadly too common and quite often leave lasting tragedies. By Darrel Canada With Oct. 1 having marked the beginning of a new year on the “accident counts and fatalities” that have been reported to the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics), we here in Region 6 come into the new […]