Mind the Gap – Pinch Point & Trapping Hazards Campaign
Groveport Pilot
The Humber HSE Team launched Mind the Gap — a proactive safety intervention focused on pinch point, trapping, and crushing hazards across port, logistics, vessel, steel, and transport operations.
The campaign was developed in response to both local incident learning and wider group-wide injury trends, where hand injuries represented the largest category of reported incidents.
Rather than relying solely on traditional compliance messaging, the initiative focused on increasing operational visibility of “normalised” risks through frontline engagement, behavioural insight, engineering review, leadership collaboration, and human-centred safety conversations.
The pilot engaged operational managers, supervisors, engineers, vessel teams, transport personnel, and frontline operatives in identifying critical pinch point hazards and practical control improvements. The campaign incorporated:
- Targeted hazard identification exercises.
- Site-wide operational feedback.
- Engineering control reviews.
- “Critical Step / STKY” risk highlighting.
- Leadership-led safety conversations.
- Psychological safety nudges designed to increase mindful decision-making during routine work.
The project intentionally moved beyond paperwork-led safety and instead focused on closing the gap between written controls and real operational practice.
The pilot has contributed to a sustained reduction in pinch point injuries at Groveport, with the site achieving over 200 days without a pinch point or trapping injury at the time of submission.
Background and Need for Change
In early 2025, Groveport experienced a serious finger amputation injury involving a valued member of the operational team. The incident became the catalyst for a wider review of pinch point and trapping hazards across operations.
Internal analysis identified hand injuries as the largest category of reported injuries across PD Ports operations, with Groveport showing a significant concentration of pinch point and crushing-related events within steel handling activities.
The project recognised that many pinch point risks had become normalised within routine operational activities, including:
- Steel handling’
- Slinging and rigging.
- Trailer pin handling,quayside loading,vessel operations.
- Forklift interface tasks.
The campaign therefore aimed to make “invisible” risks visible again.
Campaign Design and Delivery
Mind the Gap was designed as both a local intervention at Groveport and a scalable pilot model for wider PD Ports operations.
The campaign combined operational engagement, behavioural safety, engineering review, and leadership visibility.
Managers and supervisors were tasked with identifying their highest pinch point hazards within operational areas.
This generated practical operational insight from steel operations, vessel and quayside teams, transport operations, and cargo handling activities.
Examples included:
- Unsafe hand positioning during slinging activities.
- Trapping hazards during steel bundle handling.
- Pinch risks during forklift bag lifting.
- Unsafe trailer pin handling.
The campaign focused on learning rather than blame and encouraged open operational discussion through prompts such as:
“Where do your hands go that make you nervous?”
This significantly increased visibility of low-level concerns, near misses, and unsafe workarounds.
Innovation and Human Factors
A key strength of the campaign was the integration of human-performance thinking into operational safety. The project introduced “Critical Steps” and “STKYs” (Stuff That Kills You), identifying stages of tasks where failure could result in life-changing injury or fatality.
The campaign also explored psychological safety nudges, including:
- Visual prompts.
- Reflective messaging.
- Behavioural reminders positioned at operational decision points.
This shifted the focus from purely procedural compliance toward embedded operational awareness.
Outcomes and Impact
The campaign increased reporting of pinch point hazards and near misses, strengthened engagement between operations, engineering and HSE teams, and supported improvements to safe systems of work and engineering controls.
Examples included:
- Safer trailer pin handling methods.
- Review of lifting aids.
- Development of safer steel handling arrangements.
- Stronger focus on engineering controls over behavioural reliance.
At the time of submission, Groveport had achieved over 200 days without a pinch point or trapping injury following the original incident.
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Mind the Gap demonstrated how meaningful safety improvement can emerge when operational experience, human factors, engineering thinking, and leadership visibility are brought together around a shared purpose.
The campaign deliberately avoided becoming a “paper exercise.” Instead, it focused on:
- Operational conversations.
- Practical hazard visibility.
- Frontline involvement.
- System improvement.
One of the campaign’s central messages stated: “A finger doesn’t just get amputated by accident. It’s removed by silence.” That philosophy shaped the project throughout:
to challenge normalised risk, to surface hidden hazards, and to create safer operational environments before harm occurs. The pilot has already demonstrated positive operational impact and provides a scalable foundation for wider organisational learning across PD Ports.