The short answer, according to OSHA, is that the employer must evaluate the specific permit spaces, their hazards, and associated work activities, and then determine the types of equipment and training needed. This is a reasonable approach and speaks to the fact that OSHA simply specifies that there be a means of rescue, but aren’t going to specify how to train and equip the team which can leave an employer with lots of questions.

Performing effective rescues from permit spaces that are IDLH (Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health) while wearing SCBAs is a technically demanding undertaking.

One question is whether the confined space regulations require them to develop and maintain the capability to remove an entrant from a permit space that contains hazards that are Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health (IDLH). These hazards are basically those which have an immediate impact on the health of the entrant and prevent him or her from exiting the space. This designation is usually applied to atmospheric hazards such as low oxygen levels or high concentrations of toxins.

Typically, removing patients from IDLH environments requires rescuers equipped with supplied-air respirators and other PPE. These operations are technically demanding since that they expose the rescuers to the same IDLH hazards that overcame the patient.  Training and equipping teams who can perform at this level requires a major commitment of time and money.

So which locations need to develop and maintain this high-level of rescue? Clearly any employer who sends workers into IDLH spaces to perform work (common in the petroleum and chemical industries) must have rescuers standing by the space ready and equipped to retrieve the entrants (according to the respiratory protection standard).

But what about a plywood mill or a food processing plant or any of the many other locations which do not send workers into IDLH atmospheres?

The answer  has several parts. We must begin by asking whether the space in question has a potential for developing an IDLH atmosphere due to the design or the work activities. But if this is the case, shouldn’t we be investing our time and resources in changing the design of the space or the work procedures to eliminate the hazard potential? After all, prevention or elimination before the event is a much better way of dealing with hazards than using PPE such as SCBAs.

But what if there’s a fire? Shouldn’t the rescue team be able to cope with that hazards? I’m not so sure. Trying to perform a rescue from a smoke-filled, oxygen-depleted space poses serious risks to even professional firefighters (who are invariably trained to a much higher level than almost all industrial rescue teams).

So in my opinion, asking a millwright or pipe-fitter to don an SCBA and enter an IDLH space under emergency conditions doesn’t pass the “Son Test.” So what’s the Son Test? It’s a thought experiment that I use to judge the safety of a given situation. I basically ask myself if I’d want my son to perform whatever action is being proposed given the available equipment, procedures, and training (and for the record I’m fond of my son).

So in this case, would I want my son (or yours for that matter) to strap on a cumbersome piece of equipment (which he probably hasn’t had enough training on and may not be recently fit-tested for) to go into an extremely hazardous environment look for someone who is probably already dead? Would I trust him to deal with the adrenalin and associated physiological/psychological changes that emergencies induce? Would he panic and use up all his air? Would he get hopelessly tangled in an air line or make some other simple error that can kill someone in this, the most unforgiving of environments?

Short answer: It’s possible, maybe even likely. And the over riding goal of any rescue effort is first and foremost to not injure or kill anyone else, specifically, members of the rescue team. Once that’s assured (to the extent possible), you can focus on extracting the patient.

Therefore my pre-plan in these situations would be to ascend the hierarchy of controls and eliminate/control the IDLH hazard before entry by blowing as much air into and through that space as possible. Once the IDLH environment is abated, the likelihood of not hurting or killing a member of the rescue team improves dramatically.

Remember that employers have, under the General Duty clause, the responsibility to identify hazards and control/eliminate exposure. It seems to me that expecting non-professionals to perform highly-technical rescue operations under supplied-air, in almost every case, does not meet the intent of this clause.

Jim Johnson

CEO: D2000 Safety, Inc.

 

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The challenge of finding a quick connect/quick release buckle for the Sked® has finally been met. Skedco now has the Austrian made Skedco/Cobra side release buckles that are dependable and strong enough to meet the needs of securing a patient into a Sked® stretcher without the danger of breakage. These buckles are rated at 3 thousand pounds. They are durable and easy to use. When they are under tension they are very hard to release thus accidental release under tension is not an issue. With these buckles you will no longer have to weave the webbing through the buckles when packaging a patient. Patient packaging is often done in about half of the time as when using the original steel buckles. Because of the cost of the buckles they are offered as a special order on new Sked®s and as a retrofit kit for Sked®s you already have. You do, however, get everything you pay for with these buckles. They dramatically speed up the patient packaging because of the ease of using them.
Weight: 2.0 lbs (0.91 kg)

Add versatility to any tactical, rescue or rigging system.

A large D-ring at ends of the strap allow the sling to
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Manufactured from 2-inch heavy duty webbing. D-rings are rated at 10,000 lbf.

Available with 3-inch nylon wear pad for extra durability.

Longer lengths also available up to 20 feet.

Colors: black, orange, and yellow.

Strength: 8000 lbf. (WLL 800 lbf.)

These conferences serve an essential role in bringing needed information and networking possibilities to areas of the region that may not have as many safety resources available as can be found in a major urban area. When they are scheduled in a major city, Portland for example, they provide the region’s most in-depth resource for safety and health information.

Presenting at these conferences is a great way to spend a few hours. Attendees are all focused and tuned into the subject matter. All express a genuine interest in learning new information and methods for protecting people’s well being on the job.

Here is a list of the conferences that I’m scheduled to present at in 2013.

• January 29, 2013 Excavation Safety and Soil Analysis. Mid-Oregon Construction Safety Summit; Bend, Oregon.
• March 7, 2013 Microbrewing Safety and Health Symposium. Governor’s Occupational Safety and Health (GOSH) Conference; Portland, Oregon.
• June 3, 2013  OROSHA and the New Permit Space Regulations. Oregon SHARP Alliance General Meeting; Pendleton, Oregon.
• June 4, 2013 Fall Protection: Hierarchy of Controls; Confined Space Safety; Confined Space Entry Rescue. Blue Mountain Occupational Safety and Health Conference; Pendleton, Oregon

If you’re planning to attend any of these, be sure to stop by and say hello!

Jim Johnson, CEO, D2000 Safety, Inc.

While companies are free to have any policies they choose, our customer was curious about this specific policy and posed the following question: Should rescuers enter a non-IDLH confined space to observe conditions during the entry?

Our answer was a catagorical ‘yes’ for the following reasons.

First of all, OSHA [see 1910.146 (k) (1) (v)] requires the host employer to provide designated rescuers, “access to all permit spaces from which rescue might be necessary so that the rescue service can develop appropriate rescue plans and practice rescue operations.”

At the start of the project rescue teams should have their pre-plans and equipment established; however, once the entry is underway, these pre-plans may need to be adjusted to reflect changes in tools, tasks, and work locations. Even if rescuers have a good sense of the project scope and timing, changes often occur on short notice and rescuers may not be informed of these changes. The only way to determine if changes to the pre-plan are needed is to inspect operations on a regular basis, and a trained rescuer would be the logical choice to make this inspection.

As far as the concern over a rescuer becoming incapacitated while in the permit space, remember that the employer is obligated to provide a means of rescue for all entrants throughout the course of the entry, and a rescuer conducting a routine inspection would be considered an entrant. As long as an adequate rescue capability was maintained outside the space during the entry for all authorized entrants, you would be in compliance with the OSHA codes.

These inspections by the rescuers also serve other important functions. Rescuers are invariably highly-trained safety professionals with a good understanding of basic safe work practices, and all rescuers would prefer to prevent an emergency than be forced to respond to one. Having additional safety oversight in a high-hazard work area would be considered a best safety practice.

Like I said, companies are free to have whatever policies they choose, as long as they are protecting their workers from hazards. We’re not sure that preventing rescuers from entering confined spaces is a way of accomplishing this.

Students used the harness for positioning, rapelling, and climbing. ”We were training at the Satsop facility,” Greg Arbizo, the lead instructor explained, “which is a nuclear plant that was never brought on line. It has literally hundreds of spaces so we really had a chance to test the harness in every conceivable application.”

A member of the US Army’s 110th Chemical Battalion rapelling with D2000′s High Angle 1 Work and Rescue Harness

Word from the service members in the class was that the harness provided the level of comfort expected of high end rope and resce harnesses, and they felt that the ease of donning and adjusting the harness was as good or better than any others they had tried.

“It may seem kind of silly,” one student explained, “but when you’re conducting an exercise and need to get the harness on, it’s kind of nice to have the different colors of straps so you know which end is up. We can’t always hang our gear to store it so getting the twists out in a hurry works for us.”

Other students appreciated the suspension for positioning work and the cargo pockets were great for small items.

“This is the harness that I always wanted,” D2000′s Greg Arbizo explained. “It has a number of features I always thought were important and I really enjoyed the development process.”

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Download Combined Tempe Arizona Class Welcome Letter

Combine the Fall Protection and Confined Space Train the Trainer classes and save.

Four days of Mastery-level training for $900, saving your company $190.

A great way to make efficient use of your time and address two common training needs for many companies.

Built as the new workhorse for Fire, Industrial, Rescue, Safety and Tactical industries, the G-FIRST is the world’s lightest carabiner to earn the full-strength, “General” rating from the National Fire Protection Association! Rated to 40kN, this ‘biner weighs only 4.6 oz—almost 10% lighter than other G-Rated aluminum ‘biners and less than half the weight of steel carabiners. G-FIRST is ISO Cold Forged from aircraft-quality, heat-treated aluminum. Get them in all-purpose bright, Rescue Red or Covert Black. Whether you’re fighting fires, working at height, saving lives or in a combat zone, the G-FIRST has you covered.

 What is the required capacity for an anchor point used solely for rescue (retrieval) as opposed to fall arrest or fall restraint?

It seems like a simple question, and there should be a fairly simple answer. But once you start digging, you discover that the question can be fairly complicated.

Let’s assume that we’re talking about an anchor point on a tripod used to retreive entrants from a vault. Since this utility is located in Oregon, we can get some guidance from Oregon OSHA’s IM-89-04 which addressed standards for the design and use of tripods. This states: “When tripods, davit arms and similar lowering equipment are used for lowering people, or for rescue and similar purposes, they are considered temporary elevated work platforms (scaffolds) and must meet the following requirements.”

They go on to say in (A) (4) that: “Tripods and davits used for raising or lowering personnel shall be capable of supporting a 5,000 pound dead load. (437-02-125 (4) or 437-03-1926.104).”

So for tripods and davits arms that’s pretty clear. And it makes sense to have a lot of capacity on these devices because the anchor may be used (intentionally or not) for fall arrest. That is, an entrant may be descending a ladder attached to lifeline intended to be used only for retrieval, but the entrant slips and falls off the ladder and the fall is arrested by the retrieval system. So in this case 5,000 pounds of capacity makes sense.

But what about an anchor that was only going to be used for pulling someone up and out of a manhole, but not on a davit arm and not in Oregon?  This really isn’t addressed by OSHA (or the NFPA) since they don’t set these types of rescue requirements. But it is addressed by ANSI Z359.1-2007 for both engineered (certified) rescue anchors and improvised (non-certified) rescue anchors.

A certified rescue anchor (i.e., a manufactured anchor with documentation and installed by a qualified person) must have a static strength that is five times the applied load. In a system that was strictly used for vertical retrieval (no freefall potential) the applied load would be determined by the weight of the person being retreived and the geometry of the rope rescue system. For example, if you use a pulley as a change of direction you would increase the force on the anchor because the two vectors (one leading to the load, the other to the mechanical advantage) create a resultant vector on the anchor which can be up to twice the load.

Determining the forces that may be applied on a rescue anchor requires a solid understanding of the physics involved.

Determining the forces and ensuring the system, including the anchor, can withstand five times the applied load would be the job of the qualified person.

When looking at a non-certified rescue anchor (i.e., running an anchor strap around a piece of structural steel) ANSI would require it to be able to support 3,000 lbs.

When considering non-certified anchors, remember that the problem isn’t the capacity of the connectors (since they would be rated to 5,000 lbs. or more). Instead, the problem is assessing the strength of the structure(s) serving as the anchor foundation. It can be very challenging to visually assess a structure and provide a meaningful estimate of the strength of that structure.

In a practical sense, all this talk about capacities of improvised anchors is sort of academic anyway since estimates of structure capacity are just that, estimates. In a technical rescue you always select the strongest anchor you can.  If you’re uncertain about the integrity of the anchor, you rig a backup or multipoint anchor.

Multiple configurations of the TerrAdaptor™ Portable Anchor System can be built from various standard system components. The primary system revolves around the TerrAdaptor™ Tripod System (SM230100N). This system includes all of the necessary parts to assemble a standard symmetric tripod that provides the ability to reach a height of approximately 10 ft, and can be used in a Gin Pole or Bi-Pod configuration. The system comes packaged in three compact packable bags to make it easy to “grab your bags and go” as well as store the System together in an organized manner. To transition your Tripod to a Quadpod System, you can purchase the TerrAdaptor™ Quadpod Attachment Kit (SM230105). This kit provides the fourth leg and attachment pieces necessary to transition your tripod into a Quadpod. If your needs are fairly simple and a single gin pole is the best solution for your situation, you can purchase the TerrAdaptor™ Gin Pole Kit (SM230106). This kit includes a full leg kit to reach approximately 10 feet in height adjustability. For those who typically encounter environments that require more than 10 feet of height, additional leg extension pieces (apprx 4 ft in length) can be individually purchased for this use. This piece can also be used to provide one extra long leg if a tall “lazy leg” configuration, if desired.

Key Features:

• TerrAdaptor™ Tripod Head
• 2 Offset Leg Clamps with 3 Load Locking Pins each
• Main Attachment Pin
• 3 Leg Kits complete with Ball Feet, Hobble Plates & Baskets
• Center Leg Clamp with 3 Load Locking Pins each 3 Rope Hobble Sections
• Cotter Pin Kit
• Leg Coupling Pin
• 2 Lash Ring with 1 Coupling Pin each
• TerrAdaptor™ Head/ Accessory Bag
• 2 TerrAdaptor™ Leg Bag
• TerrAdaptor™ User Guide