Chapter 3: Risk Management

Which of the following constitutes a risk?

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• Needle-stick exposures

• Back injuries during training

• SCBA failures leading to injury

• All of these choices are risks.

To determine if a department’s equipment is contributing to a risk for injury, the organization should conduct:

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• research on national trends.

• a safety audit.

• a Haddon matrix analysis.

• a review of SOPs.

As part of an economic initiative to bring jobs to the area, a small, rural town has offered tax credits to a national petrochemical refinery. It will be the first non-agricultural business in the area and the first chemical company. As the head of the local emergency services organization, what would be the best first step in your risk management activities upon hearing the news about the new plant?

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• Conduct a safety audit of your department’s current status.

• Evaluate the severity of the new risks.

• Establish priorities for responding to unforeseen circumstances.

• Visit the city planning committee for information on the construction of the new chemical plant.

Which of the following sources of information can provide useful insights into identifying safety and health risks?

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• Regulations

• Standards

• OSHA illness/injury logs

• Actuarial tables

Once all risks are identified, the next step in the risk management process is to______________the risks.

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• control

• evaluate

• transfer

• enforce

____________ is the measurement of how often a particular risk is likely to occur.

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• Severity

• Cost

• Impact

• Frequency

Severity of a risk is measured by ____________ and organizational impact.

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• frequency

• cost

• priority

• liability

A department with 35 emergency vehicles available for use on any given day has a rate of 50 traffic accidents per year. Based on the information given, the relative accident rate is:

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• low.

• average.

• high.

• unable to be determined.

Which of the following situations would cause the highest organizational impact?

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• In a department with 10 emergency vehicles, having one vehicle out of service after a collision

• In a department with 25 vehicles, having two fire fighters in the hospital

• In a department of 10 people, having two fire fighters take jobs in another city

• In a department of 50 people, having multiple people recovering from severe injuries

______________ is an indirect cost related to the severity of a risk.

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• Overtime pay

• Low morale

• Costs for medical treatment

• Having to replace expensive equipment