Health and Safety Urban Legends - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Health and Safety Urban Legends

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Are Urban Legends True? Some ... Urban Legends and Folklore. urbanlegends.about. ... Urban Legends Reference Pages. www.snopes2.com/ Darwin Awards ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Health and Safety Urban Legends


1
Health and Safety Urban Legends
  • Fact or Fiction?
  • Lorraine Davison, CCOHS
  • NAOSH Week - May 2001

2
What Are Urban Legends?
  • Great story often retold urban folklore
  • Funny, sad or horrifying
  • Usually instructive
  • Sounds too good to be true!
  • Often happened to a friend of a friend
  • You are told that this really happened

3
Are Urban Legends True?
  • Some true some false
  • If you hear the same story retold with new
    variations these usually never happened
  • Some legends can be traced historically
  • Tell-tale warning signs can occur (hoax)
  • Spread by word-of-mouth, e-mail, the Internet,
    and often retold via newspapers, radio and TV

4
Why do Legends spread?
  • Great stories you want to share
  • Sounds believable
  • Most people assume the truth
  • Most people want to help
  • We have lots of people we can send e-mail to very
    quickly (more on hoaxes)

5
Favourite HS Legends
  • Microwaved water can explode
  • Worker died after Lead Running
  • Man found dead (5 days) in office
  • Cults hid AIDS-infected needles in vending
    machines
  • Cell phones cause explosions at gas stations
  • A hospital cleaner polishes off patients
  • Microwave radiation cooks worker

6
Exploding Water
7
Lead Running
Personal e-mail from an HS-Canada subscriber
8
George Turklebaum, R.I.P.
http//urbanlegends.about.com/science/urbanlegends
/
9
Needles That Stick
10
Cell Phones That Go BOOM
11
Cell Phones
  • Phone manufacturers and gasoline companies have
    issued warnings in the past
  • BUT no verifiable incident can be traced (beyond
    2 newspaper reports which turned out to be false)
  • it hasnt happened yet but

12
The Hospital Cleaner
  • Newspaper Title Cleaner Polishes Off Patient
  • Series of dead patients in ICU same bed every
    Friday morning
  • Search for cause but no clues
  • Finally find out that every Friday morning a
    cleaner would remove a plug used for life support
    system, use socket to polish the floor
  • Cape Times, 6/13/96

http//www.urbanlegends.com/medical/hospital_clean
ing_lady.html
13
The Hospital Cleaner
  • Cape Times did report story but not completely
    2 key points missed
  • Hospital official didnt know the story
  • Govt Representative said story was unconfirmed
    and were investigating
  • Phrase investigating was sufficient to give the
    story credibility and so the story was printed
    though embellished from one death to several via
    e-mail re-tellings

14
Microwave Cooking
http//www.snopes2.com/horrors/techno/cooked.htm
15
Signs its an Email Hoax Courtesy of
hoaxbusters.ciac.org
  • Dire advice and warning!!!send this to everyone
    you know
  • Story is very plausible
  • Source is an expert and should know
  • Letters always have recognizable parts
  • A Hook - A Threat - A Request
  • Solution when in doubt dont send it out
  • Validate stories thru Urban Legend websites

16
Websites on Urban Legends
  • Alt.folklore.urban Urban Legends
    Archiveswww.urbanlegends.com
  • Urban Legends and Folkloreurbanlegends.about.com
  • Hoaxbustershoaxbusters.ciac.org/HBUrbanMyths.shtm
    l
  • Urban Legends Reference Pageswww.snopes2.com/
  • Darwin Awards Fictional or worse
    www.darwinawards.com

17
Books on Urban Legends
  • Jan Harold Brunvand and Other Authors
  • Too Good to Be True
  • The Truth Never Stands in the Way of a Good Story

18
Thank-you!
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