The more incidents that occur that result in no injury or equipment damage, or only minor damage, the greater the likelihood of a serious incident occurring.
One way to identify hazards is for employees to report near mishaps. By tracking those and eliminating the hazards that led to the incident, you can reduce the likelihood of a serious accident.
Even tracking use of first aid supplies can provide useful information. One of our clients has been doing this. We were able to do a trend analysis, looking at which pieces of equipment or tasks tended to cause more cuts. Then we were able to engineer out many of the hazards, and to recommend personal protective equipment where we could not.