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June 09 Issue - Employee Monthly Magazine Goal: Make safety and security integral to every activity we do.Anatomy of an emergency highway kit
Robert Gonzales, in the red WSST shirt, shows students the contents of the highway emergency kit. Photo by Sandra Valdez Having a flat tire in a government vehicle was a not-so-subtle reminder to Lab employee Chad Hanawalt of the importance of having an emergency highway kit. It also spurred a recent effort by the Security and Safeguards Directorate’s Workers’ Environment Safety and Security Team (WESST). Hanawalt, who works in the Vulnerability Assessment Office, had the blowout on U.S. 84/285 near the Santa Fe Opera around 8:30 p.m. while returning to Los Alamos from a business trip. He was able to pull the government vehicle off the dark highway onto the shoulder to assess the situation. Hanawalt quickly discovered the vehicle didn’t have a flashlight, flairs, or other emergency equipment. Northbound traffic meanwhile was zipping by, creating an unsafe condition. To make matters worse, Hanawalt’s personal cell phone was inoperative. It took nearly three hours, but he eventually was able to change the tire. The next day, ADSS Chief of Staff Christy Archuleta heard about the experience and contacted the organization’s deployed safety officer and vehicle property representative to see if emergency road safety equipment could be purchased for ADSS’s nonemergency vehicles. The individual turned to Robert Gonzales, chair of the WESST and vice-chair of the Lab’s institutional Worker Safety and Security Team, for help with this safety issue. Gonzales of Classified Matter Protection worked with a Voluntary Protection Program vendor to develop an emergency highway kit, and in less than 45 days it was shipped to the Laboratory and placed in ADSS nonemergency vehicles. The emergency highway kit comes in a bright red bag with ADSS-WESST and LANL printed on the front and includes a heavy-duty flashlight, yellow safety vest, orange “Call the Police” tape, and a bright reddish orange collapsible cone with a flashing red beacon light. “These kits now provide the appropriate safety equipment that can be quickly accessed and placed to mitigate a potential safety situation if any of our vehicles break down while being used on travel or on Laboratory property during the cover of darkness,” said Gonzales. Based on the success of the kit in ADSS and the minimal cost (less than $30) from the vendor, other Laboratory organizations have expressed an interest in acquiring these kits for their government vehicles. For more information about the emergency highway kit, contact Robert Gonzales at 7-0447 or check with your organization about securing such a kit for your government vehicle. Student safety tipWhen driving government vehicles this summer in the course of performing work, get clear directions to your destination, follow all rules of the road, watch out for bicyclists and pedestrians, and drive defensively. For more information about defensive driving, go to http://www.roadtripamerica.com/DefensiveDriving/Drive-Safe. Other Headlines
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