Risk Taker, The

there are almost 2 million on the job injuries and deaths each year most of them are caused by unnecessary risk-taking this is the story of one of them you know you got to wear this suit to work after the wedding Eddie give the guys at the warehouse a real laugh in the week before young Eddie Jones wedding Gil Greenley helped him with his tux really speaking of something to wear look at the guys and I made for you gave him a custommade hard hat from his well-wishing friends arranged for the bachelor party practiced his toast for the wedding reception i' like to propose a toast to the bride and groom and put in his pre-wedding Friday afternoon working with Eddie just as he usually did hey Eddie take a look that's great so stop driving this thing and get him fixed before you hurt yourself look I'm not the only one who drives this thing and if the guy before me didn't red tag it why should I anyhow the brakes aren't that bad now come on and load this thing so we can get out of here for your party tonight great hard hat as reported later he didn't think the brakes were really dangerous besides he figured if someone else could handle that forklift so could he with that tragic decision Gil Greenley joined the [Music] risk-takers in the world we live in a lot of people take risks some are taken for excitement challenge or fun some are taken for fame or Fortune and some are an inevitable part of certain jobs in the 20th century but today we're talking about a whole other category of risk-takers whose injuries and deaths have nothing to do with money or fun and they certainly aren't an inevitable part of their jobs in the 20th century we're talking about people who put their feet hands and hearing at risk who use chairs instead of proper stools or ladders who fail to wear hard hats or safety glasses or lock out their power sources who run on the job remove safety devices ignore safety warnings take drugs endanger their backs by lifting improperly or who endanger their lives by failing to use their safety belts people like postal driver Jerry Dev who decided one day that wearing his safety belt was in inconvenient yeah I have a delivery route in a real quiet residential area and even though it's a strict rule of the Postal Service that we have to keep our safety belts on all the time when the vehicle is moving I sometimes take mine off because it's a lot of trouble to wear it when I have to keep getting in and out of the Jeep anyhow that one day I was delivering the mail like always with a car came roaring out of nowhere and that's the last thing I remember [Music] really embarrassing thing is the police said I probably would have been all right if I had been wearing my safety belt and had my door closed in the intersection an unnecessary risk taken for an unimportant reason and the unfortunate thing is that most people who take risks and get hurt really no better like the construction worker who poured gasoline into a hot engine or The Machinist Who removed his safety glasses because he said they were uncomfortable or the gas line worker who thought he could get away with working in an unored trench because as he told his friends I'm only going to be in there a few minutes but still millions of people are killed and injured because they gamble with unnecessary risks as safety Specialists know so well un fortunately everybody takes risks sometimes but nobody takes risks all the time and some people are just more liable to take risks at certain times of the day than others risk-taking really increases if you're tired angry hungry or maybe you're just in a hurry and it really increases if you've been taking drugs or if you've been drinking because then well then your judgment's been badly affected if you could scan the brains of Representative Risk Takers to discover why they take risks you'd find reasons like these very much alive inside their minds taking risk and save time taking risk can make the job easier I'm not afraid to take risks I won't get hurt or most often of all I can get away with it the fact is that most people just don't believe that anything bad will happen to them the construction work who poured gasoline into the hot engine knew it wouldn't explode The Machinist who endangered his eyes didn't think he'd get hit with flying chips the gas line worker alone in the unored trench knew it wouldn't collapse and the postal driver was sure he could drive his Jeep safely without his seat belt in fact almost everyone injured from risk-taking was sure they could get away with it that one time nobody takes it an intentional risk expecting to get hurt and they're not only convinced they'll get away with it a lot of them actually think they'll get some kind of reward out of it as the postal driver said I thought it would be more convenient the way I did it as the injured machinist said I thought I'd be more comfortable without my glasses that's all as the burned construction workers said I figured it would be faster the way I did it and as Gil Greenley the forklift driver was reporting to have said I didn't have time to get the brakes fixed anyhow it was faster and less work just to keep going faster less work easier more comfortable but the problem is that the assumed rewards are so vastly outweighed by the possible consequences of the risk no thinking person would trade a fractured skull for the comfort of going without a hard hat or a fractured hip for the convenience of using a office chair as a ladder or possible death because it was fun to ignore the rules for safety around heavy equipment because as those familiar with Gil greenley's case were reminded so tragically the consequences of risks always exceed their imagined rewards but because not every risk has a bad outcome the Risk Takers are encouraged to take new risks simply because they got away with the last one the whole thing becomes a game of Risk roulette where the winners never win anything important and the losers too often lose their lives in Risk roulette if you land on a Green Space you got away with it that time if you land on the yellow it's a minor injury if you land on the red a major injury if you land on this space of Fatality and because it's a brand new spin of the wheel every time a risk is taken the odds of a bad outcome increase the more you play and while there are more green spaces than the others and while some may get away with their gamble for several spins you just never know where the ball will fall do you and the rules of Risk roulette apply equally to those who take their risks unknowingly simply because they're careless or daydreaming or maybe they might just not recognize their unsafe acts as risks at all it just doesn't occur to some people that unbalancing a file cabinet is dangerous or running through slippery areas or jumping off a loading dock or using tools improperly whether on the job or at home where literally hundreds of Hazards lie in wait to sabotage the Risk Takers who fail to recognize the danger and the results can range from saw cuts to slips and falls in serious injury part of the problem is that people who do a job many times tend to get overconfident careless and to forget the risks their job involves the lineman who works with high voltage may not get overconfident as soon as the worker who pounds nails but even when you're working with 21,000 volts familiarity can breed carelessness and because the outcome of risr Leed is so often tragic it's vital for people to consider the consequences before they play and in that tiny second before they decide to endanger their feet and ears use chairs as ladders work without hard hats or safety glasses run on the job ignore safety warnings lift improperly drive without safety belts drive a forklift with faulty braks or whatever they should consider the possibility of an accident an injury by asking themselves to suppose suppose I fall suppose I injure my head suppose I blind my eye suppose I trip suppose I Crush my hand suppose I injure my back suppose I crash with another [Music] car then they should balance those serious consequences against such unimportant rewards as a few seconds saved versus injury or death finally at work or at home they should remember they're about to gamble on the deadly game of Risk roulette and to consider that the ball could drop in the green the yellow the red or in the skull this very [Music] time which brings us back to Gil dinley the forklift driver hey come on Eddie snap it up you'll make us late your own bachelor party hey take it easy Gil we'll get there all right Gil knew his breaks were defective that day in fact the investigation showed that he commented on it to several of his fellow workers but he kept on driving his forklift anyhow didn't part because he had a reputation as a pretty macho guy who had to get the job done all right move it out buddy and to show off for his friends like young Eddie Jones hey Tony out of the way so there you had a man who knew he was taking a risk but for reasons of his own he kept right on taking it but at 3:15 on the afternoon of Friday December the 11th Gil greenley's game of RIS GRE Li came to a deadly end hey what out I can't stop this thing man that was close you guys see that I'd have gone off the dock if I hadn't hit those boxes hey nice job here grey yeah how about that you okay yeah I'm fine but I'm not sure about the boxes that was it end of the game but ironically not for Gil Greenley because you see it sometimes happens that the victim of a risk taker is an innocent bystander in this case a good friend who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time he see Eddie Eddie where are you Eddie case history of a risk taker whose rewards hardly equal the consequences of his unsafe Act [Music]