In the industry, a near miss is an incident which lies at the bottom of the safety pyramid.
Safety Pyramid
A near miss does not cause any injury, damage or publicity. However, the main reason why it doesn’t do so is usually due to dumb luck. For example:
- A tie rod would hit someone on the head if it was two inches to the left.
- A dropped box would crush someone if there was a person on a designated walkway.
- A hammer missed smashing equipment because the wielder’s reach was 3 inches too short.
Here’s a near miss near our offices. In this case, it would be an incident if the power cable snapped, or the power cable was 4 feet longer, or a 10 ft tall person happened to walk by.
Near Miss - Detached Lighting Fixture
Wata - Malaysian Oil and Gas Engineer 
Hiya Wata just wanted to add something. I work for a safety company but not a HSE guy.
The picture should be ‘categorized’ as an accident waiting to happen. Or rather a known hazard. If it actually fell in front of somebody but did not cause harm, then it would be a ‘near miss’. It would then be an accident without harm.
It is key to record known hazards and near miss incidents. It is deduced that if you reduce these counts, you would reduce the number of possible LTIs and fatalities.
bobdbilder: thanks.
http://www.praxiom.com/ohsas-18001-definitions.htm
An accident is a type of incident. It is a work-related event
during which injury, ill health, or fatality actually occurs.
It is a type of incident (see 1, above).
A close call, near miss, near hit, or dangerous occurrence
is also a type of incident. It is a work-related event during
which injury, ill health, or fatality could have occurred,
but didn’t actually occur (see 2, above).
http://ohsas18001expert.com/2007/08/02/incidents-vs-nonconformities-in-ohsas-180012007/
it is “incident” and not “accident”.