Hazard, Damage, and Incident Documentation Checklist

Use this for an injury, exposure, near miss, equipment failure with risk, property damage, chemical release, suspected electrical or gas event, barrier failure, contamination, security event, or other occurrence that needs more than a routine service exception.

This page is not a public incident-submission form. Record names, contact information, medical details, customer information, and evidence only in your company’s approved private system.

1. Protect life and call for help

• Stop the affected task without creating another hazard.
• Call 911 or the local emergency number for immediate threats to life, fire, serious injury, drowning, gas, electrical, chemical gas, major release, violence, or uncontrolled property danger.
• Contact Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222 for a poison or chemical exposure when appropriate; follow the product label and SDS emergency instructions.
• Provide first aid, rescue, spill response, or shutdown only within current training, PPE, equipment, and authorization.
• Move to fresh air, an upwind area, or another safe location when the applicable emergency procedure requires it.
• Keep customers, children, pets, workers, and bystanders out of the affected area.
• Do not enter water, touch an energized person or object, investigate gas, approach reacting chemical, release pressure, or enter an unstable area to document it.

Emergency care and scene safety take priority over your company notifications, photographs, customer messages, and property cleanup.

2. Establish scene control

• Identify the immediate hazard boundary from a safe position.
• Use only approved barriers, normal emergency controls, warning communication, or evacuation actions within authority.
• Leave equipment, valves, controls, containers, tools, debris, and damaged items in place unless movement is necessary for rescue, hazard control, or authority instruction.
• Do not reset alarms, clear error history, clean residue, discard parts, drain water, restore power, restart equipment, or rearrange the area.
• Prevent unauthorized entry, operation, cleanup, repair, or social-media recording where your company has authority.
• Follow police, fire, medical, utility, regulator, property-representative, or other incident-command direction.

If the scene must change, record what moved or changed, who directed or performed it, why, and the before-and-after state when safely possible.

3. Notify your supervisor

• Use the designated urgent incident channel, not only a normal service note or group message.
• State the property, exact location, event type, whether anyone is injured or exposed, whether emergency services are involved, and whether the hazard is active.
• State the current pool, spa, equipment, gate, cover, chemical-area, and property-use restriction.
• Request the incident manager, reporting decision, customer-contact owner, and any evidence-preservation instruction.
• Record the person or process that accepted incident ownership and the time.
• Escalate again through the fallback path if no authorized owner accepts it.

For a work-connected employee death or potentially serious injury or illness, your company management must assess Cal/OSHA Section 342 immediately. The rule's reporting window can be no longer than eight hours after the employer knew or should have known, so field delay or uncertainty must not hold the notice in a routine queue.

4. Create the initial fact record

Record facts without diagnosing cause:

• Date and time the event occurred, if known, and time discovered.
• Exact property area and orientation.
• Pool, spa, cover, gate, equipment, vehicle, tool, chemical, product, or structure involved.
• Operating mode, pump speed, valve state, pressure, temperature, alarms, automation state, electrical or gas state, and recent work when safely observable.
• Weather, rain, wind, heat, lighting, water visibility, deck condition, and access conditions when material.
• What happened immediately before, during, and after the event.
• Emergency, first-aid, shutdown, evacuation, barrier, cleanup, or property-protection actions already taken.
• Known scene changes and who made them.
• What remains unknown, unsafe to inspect, or unavailable.

Use “reported,” “observed,” and “measured” accurately. “Customer reported a shock sensation” differs from “technician measured voltage,” and neither alone establishes the cause.

5. Record people and statements privately

• Identify involved people and witnesses only in the approved private incident record.
• Record each person's own words separately and identify the source; do not merge accounts.
• Ask open factual questions only when safe and appropriate: what they saw, heard, did, and when.
• Do not coach, blame, argue, promise confidentiality beyond policy, or pressure an injured or distressed person for a statement.
• Do not ask for unnecessary medical history, immigration status, financial information, or unrelated personal details.
• Do not record an interview, face, or voice without the approved process and required notice or permission.
• Protect employee health and customer information from the routine customer-facing service record.

Medical diagnosis belongs to qualified healthcare providers. Record symptoms or information reported, not a technician diagnosis.

6. Photograph and preserve evidence

Only from a safe authorized position:

• Capture a wide orientation view before close views.
• Capture mid-range views showing relationships among equipment, water, controls, tools, containers, barriers, and damaged areas.
• Capture close detail from multiple useful angles.
• Include a clean known scale when size matters and placement will not disturb or contaminate evidence.
• Photograph displays, alarms, labels, model and serial information, valve positions, gauges, damage, residue, water paths, footprints, fragments, and temporary controls when relevant.
• Record image date and time, direction, subject, photographer, weather or lighting limits, and what the image demonstrates.
• Preserve original files without filters, cropping that changes meaning, object removal, annotation over the original, generative editing, or personal-cloud copies.
• Create an evidence inventory for physical parts, samples, containers, video, logs, customer-provided files, and documents; do not collect or move them without authority.

Never ask a person to re-create an action, enter a pool, energize equipment, release pressure, handle chemical, or stand near damage for a better image.

7. Document damage and present condition

• Describe material, component, location, dimensions, direction, color, moisture, deformation, break, residue, heat indication, or movement objectively.
• Separate old wear, prior repair, historical staining, and unrelated damage from the newly observed condition when evidence permits.
• Record customer-reported pre-event state as a report, not established fact.
• Do not estimate repair price, replacement value, lost use, fault percentage, insurance coverage, or remaining life in the field record.
• Do not test damaged equipment or clean the area merely to decide whether it still works.
• Record any emergency stabilization and its limits.

“Crack approximately 75 mm long at the visible lower housing” is evidence. “Our company broke the pump” or “manufacturer defect” is a cause conclusion requiring investigation.

8. Control communication

• Give customers and occupants the current safety status and immediate action in plain language.
• State what your company observed, what your company did, and what remains under review.
• Do not admit fault, assign blame, speculate about cause, negotiate payment, promise repair, offer credit, confirm insurance coverage, or promise a result.
• Route media, attorney, insurer, regulator, law-enforcement record requests, subpoenas, or demands for evidence to your company's designated contact.
• Do not publish or share incident images, names, addresses, communications, or internal discussion through personal messaging, social media, training, marketing, or public AI tools.
• Record the actual recipient, channel, time, delivery result, and acknowledgment of any urgent use restriction.

Accurate empathy is appropriate: “I’m sorry this happened. Our priority is getting everyone away from the area and making sure the right people respond.”

9. Route reporting and preservation decisions

Your company management, not the field technician alone, must promptly assess:

• Cal/OSHA immediate reporting and employee injury-record obligations.
• Workers' compensation and employee-notice obligations.
• Fire, police, utility, environmental, hazardous-release, health, building, or local-authority notification.
• Manufacturer safety or product reporting.
• Customer contract and property-manager notification.
• Insurer, attorney, claim, evidence hold, privacy, and record-retention requirements.
• Whether repair, testing, disposal, water discharge, cleanup, or scene release is authorized.

Record who made each decision, when, the source consulted, confirmation or report number when issued, and any next deadline. Do not assume that calling 911 satisfies every employer or environmental reporting duty.

10. Hand off for investigation and correction

• Assign an incident investigator with authority and relevant technical participation.
• Preserve the initial field record as the contemporaneous fact layer.
• Build a timeline from independent sources: people, equipment logs, automation, weather, work orders, photos, labels, manuals, and physical evidence.
• Identify immediate, contributing, and system causes without stopping at “carelessness” or “procedure not followed.”
• Ask why the condition existed, why controls did not prevent it, and whether training, tools, staffing, scheduling, design, supervision, procedure, procurement, or prior reports contributed.
• Define interim controls before similar work resumes.
• Assign each corrective action to an accountable owner with a review point and completion evidence.
• Verify effectiveness after implementation; closing a task does not prove recurrence risk is controlled.
• Share de-identified lessons with affected personnel through your company's approved process.

Event-specific prompts

Injury or exposure

• Aid and medical evaluation handled by appropriate responders.
• Exposure product, label, SDS, route, duration, symptoms reported, decontamination, and Poison Control or medical direction recorded privately.
• Employee serious-injury reporting assessment started immediately.

Chemical release or reaction

• People moved away and upwind or to fresh air as applicable.
• Product identities remain separate and no incompatible cleanup material is used.
• Drain, soil, water, air, container, quantity estimate, and release path documented only from safety.
• Fire, environmental, National Response Center, hazardous-material, and disposal reporting applicability assigned.

Electrical, gas, fire, pressure, or equipment failure

• Affected system remains off or controlled only through an authorized safe method.
• No reset, re-energization, leak search, pressure release, or function test occurs before scene release and qualified review.
• Utility, fire, manufacturer, and qualified-trade roles are assigned.

Pool, spa, cover, barrier, or suction event

• The affected pool, spa, or feature remains out of use.
• Water visibility, operating state, covers, gates, latches, alarms, drain covers, cleaner, toys, and access conditions are preserved.
• No reenactment or operation occurs to prove how the event happened.

Property damage or near miss

• Damage is protected from worsening without concealing evidence.
• No-damage event is still reported when a person, structure, equipment, or neighboring property could reasonably have been harmed.
• Customer impact and temporary property protection are assigned without admitting cause or promising compensation.