Schumacher’s accident shocked the world when he suffered a serious head trauma at the end of December while skiing in the exclusive French resort of Meribel. He remains in a medically induced coma. The 45-year-old German was skiing off-piste with his teenage son when he fell and hit his head on a rock.
Shumacher’s accident is an illuminating example of the‘Swiss cheese’ model in action. This model is widely adopted in Human Factors for explaining accident causation. It hypothesises that in any system there are many levels of defence (represented by the slices of cheese), and that each of these levels of defence has little ‘holes’ in it. The holes arise from two sources: unsafe acts and latent conditions. Unsafe acts are usually short lived windows of opportunity and can be caused by factors such as poor decision-making, inadequate procedures, lack of training, limited resources, etc Latent conditions occur because the designers, builders, managers and operators cannot foresee all possibe accident scenarios – and they are present before the acciident occurs. If holes become aligned over successive levels of defence they create a prime pportunity for an incident to occur. The image below demonstrates the Swiss Cheese model in action in Schumacher’s accident.
Prof James Reason, originator of the Swiss Cheese model and an internationally acclaimed figure in the world of Human Factors, points to the principal demographic and psychologial characteristics of individuals most likely to bend rules and pre-dispose themselves to an accident. Schumacher nicely fits this profile: he is a man who is likely to have a high opinion of his skills relative to others; he is experienced and not error-prone; he is likely to be less constrained by what other people think and by negative beliefs about outcomes. At the time of his accident, Schumacher’s psychological precursors were compounded by the prevailing safety environment: the snow was thin on off-piste areas. Additionaly, questions have been raised about whether the limits of the piste were sufficiently demarcated. Schumacher committed the unsafe act of skiiing off-piste, and when he fell it was completely unforeseen that there would be a large rock on the trajectory of his fall on which he struck his head. A final ‘hole in the cheese’ was the issue of the integrity of Schuamcher’s helmet and whether this had been compromised by the addition of a video camera which he had been using to record his son’s skiiing.
This application of the Swiss Cheese model clearly demonstrates that Schumacher’s accident has at its heart Human Factors and Non-Technical Skills and is a reminder of the unerring need for unadulterated professionalism (another term used by Professor Reason) when undertaking any safety-critical task. Professionalism means a capacity to see the broader picture, to think ahead and to draw upon a wide range of knowledge and experience so as to perform demanding work safely, elegantly and effectively. It means having a deep understanding of all the various factors that can impact upon ateask performance for good or ill. It also entails a willingness to engage in all aspects of the job – tedious or otherwise – to the best of one’s ability.
An essential requirement of attaining such professionalism is surely an excellent and thorough grounding in the 7 key Non-Technical Skills: Situational Awareness, Conscientiousness, Communication, Decision Making, Cooperation and working with others, Workload management and Self-management.
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