• Question: have you ever been put in danger by your job? or have you ever experienced an event that you would class as life threatening?

    Asked by anon-204919 to Sally, David, Dan on 5 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: David Chadwick

      David Chadwick answered on 5 Mar 2019:

      Fortunately I can say No to the first question, but unfortunately Yes to the second one.
      3 years ago I was knocked off my bicycle when I was cycling down a hill from the university at 30 mph. I was knocked out and had 10 broken bones. I had to be rushed to London for two operations. I came out of hospital one month later in a wheel chair. I was off work for 6 months whilst I recovered. Fortunately I am now fully recovered and can run, cycle and swim again. But if I had not been wearing a cycling helmet I would have died from a broken skull. As it was, only my helmet was torn in two.

    • Photo: Sally Tilt

      Sally Tilt answered on 5 Mar 2019:

      Gosh – David’s answer sounds properly life threatening! Glad to hear that you’re much better now David 🙂

      I pretty much try to steer clear of dangerous situations in my job – generally it is possible to anticipate when a situation might have an added risk, and I would then plan the best way to approach it to reduce the risk of danger or harm. There is a problem at the moment with some people in prison smoking illegal drugs, which do not have an odour, but which can be pretty dangerous for others who live and work at the prison. This is a harder danger to avoid as it can be difficult to detect and therefore difficult to know how to manage the risk.

    • Photo: Dan Taylor

      Dan Taylor answered on 6 Mar 2019:

      By comparison I am fairly boring I have to say, never even broken a bone! I certainly don’t have anything on the scale of David and Sally that’s for sure!

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