A Serious Injury or Fatality (SIF) event is an incident or near miss that results in or has the potential to produce a fatal or life-altering injury or illness. Life-altering injuries or illnesses result in permanent or significant loss of a body part, organ function or otherwise permanently changes or disables that person’s normal life activity.
Incidents can be classified as actual or potential SIFs. Identifying potential SIFs involves some subjectivity, but these incidents provide a key learning opportunity for the industry.
The concept of a SIF event has evolved within the safety professional community over the last several decades and is not unique to the oil and gas industry. Historically, focus has been placed on addressing total recordable injury rates (TRIR), as defined by OSHA, and progress has been made to successfully reduce these types of incidents. Now, many companies are advancing in their journey towards safety excellence by moving beyond TRIRs and expanding their focus to the elimination of serious injuries and life altering events. These events may also be referred to as near misses, significant near misses, or high potential events.
Identifying serious injury or fatality (SIF) events involves some subjectivity, but these incidents can provide a key learning opportunity for the industry. Below are examples of types of incidents that may occur broken out by actual and potential SIF, IOGP life-saving rule category and incident type. This list is not exhaustive, but it is provided to assist the OSA participant in understanding how incidents may be classified.