When we think of mem­o­rable sport­ing mo­ments in T&T—a sold-out CPL (Crick­et Pre­mier League) match at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my (BLCA) or an In­ter­col match be­tween arch ri­vals Na­pari­ma Boys’ Col­lege and Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Cou­va, or No­vem­ber 19, 1989 at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um when the T&T foot­ballers played the USA with a point need­ed to qual­i­fy for the 1990 FI­FA Italia World Cup, our minds fo­cus­es on the ath­leti­cism and the at­mos­phere.

How­ev­er, for an event or­gan­is­er, the most crit­i­cal "win" is not on the score­board; it is en­sur­ing every ath­lete, spec­ta­tor, and work­er leaves the fa­cil­i­ty safe­ly. As such, Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Health and Safe­ty (OHS) is crit­i­cal in plan­ning sport­ing events.

Or­gan­is­ers OHS du­ty of care

Whether or­gan­is­ing a neigh­bour­hood 5K in Char­lot­teville, To­ba­go, or Marac, Moru­ga, or an in­ter­na­tion­al rug­by friend­ly at the UWI, St Au­gus­tine, event or­gan­is­ers have a du­ty of care to man­age risks that could lead to in­jury, ill­ness, or even death.

In T&T, this is gov­erned by the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Act (OS­HA) Chap. 88:08. While it is not sur­pris­ing that many may as­so­ciate OS­HA sole­ly with con­struc­tion sites or oil rigs, the Act ap­plies to any "in­dus­tri­al es­tab­lish­ment," in­clud­ing work­places where peo­ple are em­ployed. If you have ven­dors, se­cu­ri­ty, and grounds staff, you have OHS oblig­a­tions. There­fore, sport­ing events fall with­in the am­bit of the Act. chrome-ex­ten­sion://efaidnbmnnnibp­ca­jpcglclefind­mkaj/https://www.fi­nance.gov.tt/wp-con­tent/up­loads/2019/07/The-Oc­cu­pa­tion­al-Safe­ty-and-Health-Act.pdf

Glob­al sport OHS lessons

The 1989 Hills­bor­ough Sta­di­um Dis­as­ter in Sheffield, Eng­land, re­sult­ed in 96 deaths due to over­crowd­ing and poor sta­di­um man­age­ment, and is an ex­em­plary case study on why "crowd dy­nam­ics" is a crit­i­cal OHS sub-dis­ci­pline. An­drew Devine died 32 years af­ter the dis­as­ter in 2021; the coro­ner ruled he was un­law­ful­ly killed due to the in­juries sus­tained, which made him the 97th vic­tim. Ac­cord­ing to Still (2014), dis­as­ters are rarely "ac­ci­dents" but the re­sult of failed plan­ning and poor risk as­sess­ment. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-eng­land-mersey­side-47697569

OHS was at the fore­front of the 2022 FI­FA World Cup in Qatar, specif­i­cal­ly re­gard­ing heat stress for work­ers and the struc­tur­al in­tegri­ty of tem­po­rary in­stal­la­tions. For us in the Caribbean, heat stress is a dai­ly re­al­i­ty. Or­gan­is­ers must pro­vide "cool-down" zones and hy­dra­tion sta­tions not just for play­ers, but for the staff work­ing un­der the mid­day sun.

Key pil­lars of OHS plan­ning

For lo­cal sport or­gan­is­ers, OHS plan­ning should be di­vid­ed in­to three pri­ma­ry cat­e­gories:

Struc­tur­al and En­vi­ron­men­tal Safe­ty:

· Tem­po­rary Struc­tures: Bleach­ers, stages, and tents must be cer­ti­fied by a struc­tur­al en­gi­neer. Dur­ing the Sand Se­ries in Ribeirao Pre­to, a sud­den storm with gusts of over 60 km/h caused the met­al roof over the tem­po­rary grand­stand to col­lapse, re­sult­ing in nine in­juries, two of which were se­ri­ous head and limb in­juries re­quir­ing surgery.

https://www.ex­press.co.uk/sport/ten­nis/2124361/Ten­nis-roof-col­lapse-beach-met­al-crowd

· Egress and Ingress: Clear, un­blocked ex­it paths are non-ne­go­tiable. At the 2022 Africa Cup of Na­tions at the Olem­be Sta­di­um in Yaounde, Cameroon, a mas­sive crowd surge oc­curred when se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials in­ex­plic­a­bly closed one of the main en­try gates. This cre­at­ed a "bot­tle­neck" where fans were squeezed in­to a nar­row space; when the gates were fi­nal­ly opened, the sud­den re­lease caused a stam­pede that killed eight peo­ple and in­jured dozens more.

https://www.sey­chellesnewsagency.com/ar­ti­cles/16191/eight-dead-in-africa-cup-of-na­tions-cameroon-sta­di­um-crush

Emer­gency Re­sponse Plan­ning (ERP):

· An OHS plan is in­com­plete with­out an ERP. This in­cludes hav­ing on-site med­ical teams (such as the Red Cross or pri­vate am­bu­lance ser­vices) and a clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion chain with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and Fire Ser­vice.

Food and Hy­giene Safe­ty:

· OHS man­age­ment in­cludes en­sur­ing that ven­dors have valid food badges and prop­er waste-dis­pos­al sys­tems to pre­vent slips, trips, and falls.

The val­ue of the risk as­sess­ment

An im­por­tant OHS plan­ning tool is the Risk As­sess­ment Ma­trix. This in­volves iden­ti­fy­ing a haz­ard, eval­u­at­ing its like­li­hood, and im­ple­ment­ing a con­trol mea­sure. In a crick­et event, "em­ploy­ees" are not just the play­ers; they are the ground staff, the ven­dors sell­ing dou­bles and corn soup, and the se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers. If a grounds­man trips over an un­se­cured bound­ary ca­ble be­cause the or­gan­is­er failed to per­form a risk as­sess­ment, that or­gan­is­er may be in di­rect vi­o­la­tion of the OSH Act Chap. 88:08.

The Health and Safe­ty Ex­ec­u­tive (HSE) "Five Steps to Risk As­sess­ment" pro­vides a fool­proof roadmap: 1. Iden­ti­fy haz­ards; 2. De­cide who might be harmed and how; 3. Eval­u­ate risks and de­cide on pre­cau­tions; 4. Record your find­ings; 5. Re­view and up­date your as­sess­ment.

Why OHS mat­ters

In T&T, we pride our­selves on our hos­pi­tal­i­ty and "vibes." But "vibes" can­not re­place a safe­ty plan. Fail­ing to pri­ori­tise OHS does not just risk lives; it risks le­gal li­a­bil­i­ty and rep­u­ta­tion­al ru­in. Un­der the OSH Act, di­rec­tors and or­gan­is­ers can be held per­son­al­ly li­able for neg­li­gence.

Fur­ther­more, as we push for "Sport Tourism," in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies (such as the ICC or FI­FA) re­quire strin­gent safe­ty au­dits. If we want to host the world, our safe­ty stan­dards must be world-class.

Safe­ty is not a bar­ri­er to a good time; it is the fa­cil­i­ta­tor of it. When an or­gan­is­er in­vests in OHS, they are pro­tect­ing the fans' joy, the ath­letes' ca­reers, and their own pro­fes­sion­al in­tegri­ty. Let us make sure the on­ly thing "break­ing" at our next sport­ing event is a na­tion­al or world record.