Explosive challenge for employees during Damen Safety Week

It is not every day that you are asked to defuse a bomb at work. But for employees at Damen Naval, Damen Shiprepair Vlissingen and Damen Yachting, that was the challenge they recently faced. To mark Damen Safety Week, a mobile escape room was arranged where colleagues were tested in a playful manner on teamwork, communication and safety.

Fijnaart-based company Escape Room Designer had developed a special scenario for Damen: a bomb with just 25 minutes left on the timer was placed inside an old Ministry of Defence trailer. By means of solving various tasks and puzzles, the players had to find codes that could be used to open cupboards and safes. This is how they eventually got the code to deactivate the bomb. There were also several security hazards hidden in the trailer. For each identified hazard, such as a bottle of vodka or a lost staff pass, players received precious extra seconds on the ever-counting down clock.

“Damen Yachting approached us with their plan to put the escape room on their shipyard for three days and they wanted to know if we were also interested,” says HSE Officer Arnold van Sluijs. “The escape room was a way to highlight a number of safety elements in a playful way. Colleagues had to work well together and communicate clearly to find the codes. It was a successful event and I received only positive feedback.”

The escape room had a competitive element: the team that managed to dismantle the bomb the fastest was crowned the winner. That was the team of Mark Jansen, Geerten van Duin, Cor de Bruine and Kevin Veenstra who completed the challenges with 7 minutes and 21 seconds remaining. The slowest team cut it fine by defusing the bomb with just 45 seconds left on the clock. Arnold: “We treated the winners to a tasty treat and of course they get to brag about their win in the coming year.”

Damen Safety Week ran from 15-19 April and besides the escape room, there were also (online) presentations and healthy snacks were handed out.