Hazard Prevention - USE SOME COMMON SENSE PLEASE!

I am inspired to write this to appeal to anyone who ever looks at something that could be dangerous, or causes a near injury or close-miss etc. to use their common sense and DO SOMETHING to remove the hazard so nobody else gets hurt!!!!
It sounds so simple and reasonable, but I'm sure many, many people are guilty of not taking that extra time to DO something after they have noticed something that looks potentially dangerous.. Perhaps they assume that someone else will or ought to fix the problem, or that maybe no-one will get hurt... I don't know.. but really, prevention is much better than cure!

So why am I writing this?? Well, here's my recent story:

Yesterday my family went on an outing to Southbank, Brisbane. It was a lovely day, with lots of family activities on which of course drew the crowds on this long weekend. We had just arrived, and were walking along some grass towards the main walkway that is covered with a great sculptural metal structure and has bougainvillea growing up it...

Where we decided to walk through, one of the guide wires (for the plant to grow along) was situated right at an adult head height, yet there was no vine growing on the wire so it was difficult to see... Just ahead of us a dad was walking holding a young child in each hand - his attention was focussed on them as one child was talking to him, and so with his eyes looking downward he missed seeing the wire and walked straight into it! Fortunately he was okay, just a bit taken aback at having a wire whack him across the face.

My husband and I commented on how dangerous that was, but did nothing about it, except make sure that we ducked!

Later that day as we walked back to our car and through the same spot... We unfortunately were witness to another young dad who was being treated in the park by paramedics.. His face had been ripped open - there was a lot of blood, and he was obviously in a lot of pain. He too, had not seen the same metal guide-wire, but had been chasing an escaped kid and travelling at a much faster pace when he made contact!

The paramedics patched him up. The poor man went home with his family with a face totally bandaged and padded up - no doubt requiring a follow-up visit at a doctor's or hospital the next day, and a lot of pain killers that night.

And the dangerous guide-wire was still in place and waiting for it's next victim!!

My husband and I were surprised that the paramedics hadn't taken any action to deal with this obvious hazard... so decided that we had better do something and not just walk away! Nearby was some construction equipment and a lot of fluro-flags marking off an area that needed to be kept out... We took some of the fluro flags that were just hanging on the ground and wound them around the guide-wire making it obvious that it was there!

I hope nobody else has the misfortune of walking into that again - or at least someone has enough sense to have it clearly marked until the plant has grown on the wire and it can be clearly seen!

And I hope that anyone who reads this will definately remember to TAKE SOME ACTION next time they see something that is potentially dangerous!