What is the purpose of an incident report and what key elements should it contain?

• A. To assign blame to individuals involved.
• B. To memorialize the event for internal records with subjective judgments.
• C. To document facts of the incident; include date/time, location, people involved, actions taken, witnesses, evidence, follow-up steps; be objective and concise.
• D. To document only the actions taken, excluding witnesses.

Answer: (C)

An incident report is meant to capture the facts of an event in an objective, concise way so investigators and supervisors can understand what happened and plan the next steps. The report should include the essential details: the date and time, location, people involved, a clear description of actions taken and the sequence of events, witnesses and their statements, any evidence or physical findings, and the follow-up steps or actions planned. It must be objective and free of subjective judgments or attempts to assign blame. The other options don’t fit because they either try to blame individuals, add subjective judgments, memorialize the event with bias, or omit important information like witnesses or evidence, which would undermine accurate record-keeping and future investigations.