Risk Management Magazine

I don’t know why it took such a tragedy to confirm what our superiors had been telling us about wearing our Kevlar and seat belts. That accident changed the unit’s whole attitude. Our sergeant’s old war stories were now our reality. We finally got it, but we learned our lesson the hard way.

It is a graduation requirement for the students to attend a live-fire demolitions range, where they must prime and detonate certain military explosives. Sounds hazardous, right? Well, unfortunately for our schoolhouse, that wasn’t the most dangerous event to happen to the cadre on this day.

The “so what” of this unfortunate incident is that the initial risk management worksheet didn’t discuss modifications to the training. By adding an assault team to the exercise, the unit incurred an additional risk.