A safety-incident is a human-made classification of an event that has actual or potential to cause harm to people, property, or the environment. It is a constructed category used in occupational health and safety management systems to record, track, and learn from events that disrupted or could have disrupted safe operations. Safety-incidents are classified by severity, type, and outcome (near-miss, minor injury, major accident), and persist through formal reporting systems, databases, and regulatory records. [formal: incidentia | substrate: behavior | horizon: a life | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]
Accepted ontology entry
safety-incident
A safety-incident is a human-made classification of an event that has actual or potential to cause harm to people, property, or the environment. It is a constructed category used in occupational health and safety management systems to reco…
Definition
Why it is in scope
A human-made category for events where safety controls or barriers failed, were bypassed, or proved insufficient — resulting in actual harm, near-miss, or property damage. It persists through documentation, investigation processes, and institutional memory that transforms raw events into learnable data.
Names and aliases
- safety-incidenten · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
No accepted relations in this direction.
Relations to this entry
- cms9oes4i01p07skqg7yp6w5f← SERVES
Safety-monitoring is designed and maintained for the sake of safety-incident: it continuously observes systems to detect incidents as they occur. The monitoring infrastructure exists to serve incident detection, response, and management. Servant→master per Law 8d.
- cms9pty1r01sx7skq1zg0ic6b← SERVES
Safety-simulation reproduces operational, fault, or emergency conditions to test responses. It is designed and maintained for the sake of safety-incident preparedness: building organizational readiness so real incidents are detected and handled effectively. Per Law 8d, servant (simulation) points at master (incident management).
- cms9s4zt801zq7skqdtg7gt81← INSTANCE_OF
A safety-lapse is a specific kind of safety-incident: it describes a breach or failure in safety controls where risk exposure increases. The sense is clear — a lapse is an actual incident (not a near-miss) where safety controls failed. Direction: specific (lapse) → general (incident).
- cms8zdp6u02oi73fkbcr807cq← INSTANCE_OF
A near-miss is a specific kind of safety-incident: it is an unplanned event in a safety context that had the potential to cause harm but did not, due to chance or timely intervention. Nearest kind is safety-incident (Law 9). Which-came-first: safety-incident (epoch 0, more foundational) predates near-miss (epoch 0.15), consistent with INSTANCE_OF direction.
Record identity
- Created
- Aug 1, 2026, 1:15 AM UTC
- Content hash
- 9368796b9c0ab1b6de7dc77032c11cfa047939b5452e0268bf745abf9190bd52