happen. A person who expects a mishap will do something to avoid it. The  idea  that  mishaps  are  unplanned  or unintended implies two things. First, you should train people to understand what can and might happen so that preventive measures can be taken. For example, suppose you were an Electrician’s Mate and understood that someone could turn on a power switch without checking first to see if it were safe to do so. You would be more likely to protect yourself by removing the fuses in the power supply circuit and properly tagging out the switch.  Knowing  what  might  happen  could prevent a possible mishap. Second, you should believe the unexpected will occur sooner or later unless  you  take  appropriate  precautions.  For example, suppose you are convinced that sooner or later you will get a foreign body in your eye unless you wear goggles. You will then probably wear goggles when using a power tool. Believing the mishap may occur will prompt you to protect yourself. When a person has a mishap, production is always interrupted. The interruption may only involve a half an hour to get a minor injury treated at sick bay. At the other extreme, a disabling injury may mean the loss of a person for several weeks or months and, therefore, the loss of a needed skill. All these possibilities mean lost man-hours; lost man-hours means a delay in completing the task for which the section or division is responsible. Why  the  concern  about  mishaps  being production losses? Mishap prevention is as much a part of your job as assuring productivity. Experience has shown that the two go hand in hand—when safety is improved, productivity is also improved, and vice versa. Mishaps are symptoms of inefficient methods, tools, equip- ment, machines, materials, or work areas. As a supervisor, once you accept this viewpoint, you will also agree that promoting safety is part of your  job. Promoting safety involves more than reporting mishaps and correcting dangerous situations after someone has been injured, property has been damaged, or work has been interrupted. Mishap prevention  also  requires  alertness  for,  and response to, situations we shall call near mishaps. A near mishap is an event that was prevented from resulting in property damage or personnel injury by a fraction of time or someone’s timely action. Because no injury or damage results in near mishaps, some supervisors fail to investigate them. Hence, the facts are not made a matter of record and the causes go uncorrected. Sooner or later the same conditions could occur and result in serious injury. Consider the case of a person who fell several feet from a ladder after slipping on a worn ladder tread. The person was slightly shaken but without injury. The fact that the sailor escaped injury was purely circumstantial. If the causes of the near mishap had not been corrected, the next victim could have suffered serious injury. Some near mishaps involve equipment failure of some kind, such as a line parting, a control mechanism malfunctioning, or the brakes of a vehicle  not  holding.  Some  are  instances  of personnel failure. Take for example a sailor who had just finished hooking up a poorly loaded skip box full of used boiler firebricks. After stepping clear of the skip box, the sailor signaled the crane operator to hoist away. As the load was about 10 feet off the deck and being swung over the side, the bricks shifted and several fell to the deck. Being clear of the load, the sailor was not struck by the falling bricks. Another near mishap. Near mishaps should be investigated whenever reported or observed. They are forewarnings of what might happen again. A mishap is almost certain to follow when such forewarnings are ignored. THE NAVY SAFETY PROGRAM The objective of the Navy’s safety program is to enhance operational readiness. That is done by reducing the number of deaths and injuries to personnel and losses and damage to material because of mishaps. The safety program is based on the issuance of general safety precautions to each person in the command. These include mishap prevention precautions and instructions regarding special hazards encountered in the daily work environment. The general safety precautions also include supervision in matters of safety, including continuing action and command interest in  mishap  prevention,  and  evaluation  of  the effectiveness of the program. RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE SAFETY PROGRAM The responsibility and authority for the administration of the safety program lies within the normal unit organization. Figure 8-2 shows a typical safety organization. 8-6