It Could Have Been a Catastrophe: A Near-Miss Safety Incident That Changed Everything

In 2023, Brad Davis experienced the kind of safety incident most companies never want to imagine.

What could have been catastrophic instead became a turning point. Not just for his team, but for how that team approaches safety, leadership, and accountability. At this year’s Spring Management Conference, Davis will walk attendees through that experience, what went wrong, what changed, and why relying on experience alone is not enough.

It’s a candid, and at times uncomfortable, look at the reality of working in an industry where the stakes are high and the margin for error is small.

The following is a lightly edited transcript from Brad’s interview in the April 1 Episode of GAWDA TV,

GAWDA TV:

You’ve got quite an evocative title for this educational session: It Could Have Been a Catastrophe: Why the Right Safety Plan Makes a Difference.” Without giving your presentation away, can you give us the 30,000-foot overview of what you’ll be talking about in Oklahoma City?

BRAD DAVIS:

We had a safety incident in 2023 where there was a possibility of death and serious dismemberment. We had an explosion that could have really messed some people up. We didn’t have any of those effects. We feel blessed every day that we didn’t.

Once all the information about the incident was brought out and cleared up, we felt it was something we wanted to share with the rest of GAWDA.

GAWDA TV:

Everybody that was in attendance remembers the A-Ox presentation following their acetylene plant explosion. It’s been more than ten years since that happened and people still talk about it. For your session, what is the main message you want to get across that you hope will resonate the same way?

BRAD DAVIS:

The biggest point that I want to make through this presentation is the importance of developing the right plan. I think that a lot of people, myself included, this is the trap we fall into. We have a lot of experience, some of us with different companies, and different applications throughout the years, and we use that as a crutch. But nothing is better than a good safety plan.

Ultimately, someone’s knowledge is not better than having the right plan down. And, as part of the presentation, I will go through the history of what we had done, and the knowledge that we had used to try to do what we did. And I’ll point out how we still made a mistake. It’s more important to have the right plan.

And I think we’re blessed to work in the industry we do. I think it’s very important to touch on subjects like hubris when it comes to how we do things and why. So, there’s going to be a personal side to the presentation. I’m the type of person that wears my heart on my sleeve. I do this job because I love it. I work in this industry because it’s the industry I want to work in. And to have something like this happen and for there to have been an opportunity where there could have been a loss of life, it was humbling. It was very humbling for my team and for myself.

GAWDA TV:

You got a wake up call that day. How have you changed your processes since then?

BRAD DAVIS:

It started that day. The incident occurred on a Friday, and Monday morning we had a meeting with everyone in management and everyone tied to the application. It was a very humbling, very straightforward meeting where we addressed what we knew so far.

We talked through everything, shared thoughts and feelings, and then we said, “It starts today. We need to get better.” We also communicated with other GAWDA members and reached out to people we trust in the industry, including Michael Dodd.

GAWDA TV:

It’s a reminder that we work in a dangerous industry. This is a vulnerable presentation. Is there anything you want attendees to come into the room thinking about?

BRAD DAVIS:

Think about why you do what you do every day. We all have families, goals, and things outside of work, but we spend a lot of time working. What is that purpose? For me, one of the things I’ll touch on is that we can affect people in a positive way in this industry.

At the end of the day, we care about our customers. We care about what we produce. It’s important we never lose sight of that.

If you have a fatal accident somewhere you’ve poured your heart into, it can strip everything away. You start asking, “Why do I do all this?” The answer is safety. My customers are safe. My employees are safe. I don’t know what I would have done if we had a catastrophic event.

GAWDA TV:

What does success look like coming out of this presentation?

BRAD DAVIS:

I want people to come away with the view that what we do matters. You brought up the A-Ox presentation and that was the best presentation I’ve ever seen at a GAWDA event.

Everything we do everyday matters, not just to our customers, but to our employees. There’s never a reason to take that for granted. When we do, we start doing things too quickly, we stop paying attention, or we have too much pride to ask questions.

I want people to leave with a different perspective on the meaning of what we do. You can have 20 or 25 years of positive impact, and it can go away in a single instance if something preventable happens.

I want to touch on that hubris and why having the right plan can prevent it