injury. Event analysis determines the hazardous conditions and unsafe behaviors that dynamically interact to produce the injury, often pointing to specific causes of inadequate safety policies, programs, plans, processes, or procedures. Systems analysis identifies the root causes of the accident. Root causes often preexist causes identified in the event analysis and point to systemic poor design that allows, promotes, encourages, or even requires systems that result in hazardous conditions and unsafe behaviors (Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division, 2012). Occupational accident investigators are often able to determine the force that caused the injury (e.g., mechanical, thermal, or electrical) but miss the injury analysis that drills down to the positional, directional, and patterned or pattern injury or the identification of blunt or sharp force trauma. Analysis of this information in relation to occupational health and safety regulations may help investigators understand what object impacted the body, from what direction, where the worker was located, and what he or she was doing during the work process. This may also determine whether a piece of equipment was faulty or unguarded, training or supervision was lacking, or other infractions of occupational health and safety regulations were present. This scrutiny is particularly helpful when witness accounts of an incident conflict, especially in cases of unwitnessed incidents, when the results of this analysis may be the only information that can reveal what happened. Moreover, it can play an important role in formulating prevention initiatives. Forensic Nursing and the Investigation of Occupational Injuries and Fatalities The history of forensic nursing can be traced back to Alberta, Canada, and the forensic nurse death investigator (Lynch, 2011b), a registered nurse who applies the nursing process to death investigation across the life span. In 1975, based on a 5-year study, the Chief Medical Examiner of Alberta concluded that the registered nurse had the qualities essential for the investigation of death (Lynch, 2011b). Nurses began to take on the role of death investigators in the United States in the late 1970s in a program established by the Dade County Medical Examiner’s Office in Miami, Florida (Lynch & Burgess, 1998). The nurse death investigator model has since spread internationally, blending nursing science with medicine, law, and criminology. Death investigators have traditionally had a background in law enforcement (Lynch, 2011b). The nurse who is crosstrained in forensic science and legal issues provides a collaborative practice approach that benefits from their strong background in anatomy and physiology, psychology, pharmacology, medical terminology, and knowledge of communicable and natural disease processes. Without this knowledge base, nonmedical death investigators may fail to recognize medical evidence, miss crucial patterns of injuries, and have difficulty interpreting medical records and communicating in medical language. Charles Petty, Chief Medical Examiner for Dallas County, Texas, explained that it was more Original Article Journal of Forensic Nursing www.journalforensicnursing.com 195 Copyright © 2013 International Association of Forensic Nurses. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. advantageous to use individuals with a medical background and train them in investigative techniques than it was to teach a police officer/criminal investigator about medical knowledge and techniques (Lynch, 2011b). Forensic nursing has evolved from the forensic nurse death investigator to various roles in clinical forensic practice or living forensics. The International Association of Forensic Nurses defines forensic nursing as the global practice of nursing where healthcare and legal systems intersect (American Nurses Association and International Association of Forensic Nurses, 2009). The forensic nurse now applies concepts and strategies of the forensic sciences in specialty practices beyond sexual assault nurse examiners and death investigation to specialties such as incidents of child or elder abuse, interpersonal violence, correctional nursing, risk management, prosecutorial agencies, legal nurse consulting, and other areas where the interpretation, assessment, and documentation of injuries is important (Lynch, 2011a). The transfer of these skills to the investigation of traumatic occupational injuries is one more step in the application of forensic nursing expertise to a new patient population: the seriously or fatally injured worker. Workplace Accident Investigations in British Columbia, Canada In British Columbia, Canada’s westernmost province, the Workers’ Compensation Board of BC (WorkSafeBC) is the agency mandated to investigate workplace injuries and fatalities. WorkSafeBC has dedicated investigating officers in the Fatal and Serious Injury (FSI) e.g. Investigation section. When a worker is fatally injured in an occupational accident, the coroner also investigates to determine the worker’s identity, when and where the worker died, and the cause and manner of death (BC Coroners Service, 2013a). However, coroners are limited in their ability to provide the information required by occupational accident investigators in determining the mechanism of injury and incident causation. During the 5-year