Mistakes to avoid
Responding to an accident involving chemicals

When investigating, one pitfall can be to dwell on who is to blame, and to seek out the guilty parties at all costs in order to punish them. In this way, witnesses tend to get frustrated, and the analyses fail to identify root causes.

The right attitude is to say that the general organization has failed and that everyone needs to question themselves. After all, if an accident has occurred, it's because a whole chain of elements has failed to function properly, from management right down to the field. So it's time to gather the facts (facts and figures, if possible, on which there can be no ambiguity or interpretation).