Luncheon promotes safety

Gord Moker, chief executive officer of Safe Saskatchewan, had a dire message for attendees of a special luncheon at Painted Hand Casino last week.

"Our hospitalization rate for unintentional injuries is twice that of the national average and our death rate is 1.4 times the national average," he said.

What's worse, he said, is that at least 40 per cent of these injuries and deaths could be prevented.

Moker went on to make an emotional plea to the 220 people gathered for the event using photos of his own children to illustrate the impact an unintentional injury or death can have.

"Please be ambassadors for health and safety," he implored.

Moker closed by reading "I Chose to Look the Other Way," a poem by Don Merrell, a former training manager and EMT at a factory in Idaho.

"We can end the suffering caused by unintentional accidents if each one of us chooses not to look the other way," Moker said.

Before his presentation, Moker honoured Terry Ortynsky, dealer principle of Royal Ford, who sponsored the luncheon along with Crestvue Ambulance, Safe Saskatchewan, the Motor Safety Association of Saskatchewan and Painted Hand Casino.

Royal Ford has shown community leadership by making workplace safety a priority and signing on to the Saskatchewan Health and Safety Leadership Charter, Moker said.

"We don't look at [workplace safety] as a cost, we look at it as a savings," Ortynsky said.

In fact, according to Safe Saskatchewan, unintentional injuries cost the province's economy $1 billion annually. A running tally at the top of the organization's website illustrates this in dramatic fashion updating in real time the number of injuries and costs year-to-date.

As of the publishing of this article, May 14 at 10:19 a.m., 57,654 Saskatchewan people had been unintentionally injured to the tune of $367.1 million.

Earlier in the program, Marty Cobb, executive director of the Motor Safety Association of Saskatchewan honoured Carey Gleason, a technician at Royal Ford, who recently received at a banquet in Saskatoon Saskatchewan's highest safety accolade, WorkSafe Saskatchewan's Safe Worker Award for 2013.