• Question: have you ever made a mistake in your job that could have ended in a disaster ?

    Asked by caitlincardwell03 to Alex, Chris, Harriet, Jed, Ken on 15 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Ken Gibbs

      Ken Gibbs answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      I don’t think I have made any catastrophic mistakes unless you include my challenge of a senior colleague which could well have cost me my job. Check out “What has been the toughest challenge you have ever faced ?”

    • Photo: Alexander Zacheshigriva

      Alexander Zacheshigriva answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      Not yet. And I hope I will not.

    • Photo: Jed Ramsay

      Jed Ramsay answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      On a project of mine which was to build a new road to the river, on the very last day of it, after 3 months of construction there a major accident on the site. One of the guys working there in a truck with a crane on the back hit a power cable that had 40,000 volts running through it.

      Fortunately because the truck was only in contact with the ground through the rubber tyres, he wasn’t hurt – but if any bit of metal had touched the ground he certainly would have died. It also knocked out the electricty to 20,000 homes for an afternoon.

      This was a near disaster and I was the person who was responsible overall for the project. Although it was difficult to know what more I could have done to prevent it apart from driving the truck myself!

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