Sometimes ago, I witnessed how a two years old boy mistakenly drank hypo bleach from a container placed on the dining by a house assistant thinking it was water.
He couldn’t differentiate the smell from water as a small boy.
The house assistant too lacks a safety sense in handling the chemical substance.
What saved the poor boy was the fact that there are two adults at home who knew what to do as regards first-aid treatment before rushing him to a nearby hospital.
At the end of the day, more than 200k was coughed out as hospital bills coupled with lots of emotional pains, traumas, in-house fighting, blames, and serious beatings for the poor house assistant for being careless with a chemical substance around children.
As a matter of fact, there were three children playing around the dining that day and all of them could have innocently taken a gulp from the hypo substance.
This kind of issue and similar ones are daily experienced in various homes…
The reason for this is not far-fetched.
The majority of adults are not trained with health and safety principles and as such don’t pay attention to health and safety hazards around them.
Most times, we consciously or unconsciously wave them aside due to negligence.
Take, for instance, a beautiful house with lots of expensive property, gadgets, and precious lives but without a fire extinguisher!
For those who make provision for fire extinguishers in strategic places within their property, there is no provision for who or ow to operate such in case of a fire accident
This little act of negligence has cost some individuals their properties and loss of precious lives in the case of a fire accident.
Property worth millions and precious souls lost to health and safety hazards that were not prepared for.
The list of what we do as individuals that could jeopardize our lives and that of our loved ones is not limited to the absence of fire extinguishers.
For some people, it could be habitual self-medication.
There are houses with swimming pools but no adequate safety instructions or lifeguards on the ground.
Some allow sharp objects like knives to lie carelessly on surfaces in the kitchen, while for others, innocent children have used such as playing tools with their siblings or engaged in horseplay.
There are individuals who permit waste bins to overflow before making arrangements with refuse collectors to take them away thereby breeding all manner of pests, and germs around their vicinity.
For some too, the cooking gas is positioned within their kitchen, while some go around them with cellphones. That is like put a time bomb close to one’s head.
How about not labeling chemical substances or keeping them just in any place? Some children like that little boy I mentioned have drunk or injure their skin by placing with such in various homes…
Some parents permit young children to play with their phones while these children sometimes ignorantly release sensitive messages or data to WhatsApp groups on that phone.
For some, it is having a dirty or not-too-clean bathroom unattended to which inevitably breeds germs, and spread to other parts of the house since everybody visits the bathroom one way or the other.
Some of us leave drops or spills of water on the floor unattended until someone trips on it and falls. People have sustained injuries like bone fractures due to this…
Some don’t do regular checks on their surroundings to uncover hideouts for dangerous pests. Some apartments’ surroundings are breeding grounds for snakes, scorpions, and the likes…
I can go on and on.
This is like a ‘checklist’ reminder for us to pay more attention to our actions within and around our apartments. Some habits may look harmless but are indeed hazard-filled for fellow occupants around us.
If you have young ones at home, please endeavor to teach them to always be on the lookout for hazards around them so they don’t fall victim to unnecessary accidents.
A stitch in time saves nine…
If you would love to raise healthy, knowledgeable, and safety-conscious children or you desire that children everywhere be healthy, and safe from the many hazards that surround them in our modern society. You might want to consider getting this number one health and safety self-help book for children. Kindly click here to order your copies today. www.hse.olusegunakinade.com
And if you wish to support or partner with my organization’s “Health and Safety for Children” Initiative for pupils in public primary schools in Nigeria, please call or message me on +2349012819910
