Industrial Rescue: Benefits of a Good Imagination
October 7, 2019
Planning for emergencies requires a good imagination.
Confined Space and Industrial Rescue: How and How Much?
Jan 22, 2018
Does your facility require a rescue team? What OSHA standards require some kind of emergency response procedures? If your facility needs some level of emergency response, how do you develop these capabilities? What types of procedures, equipment, and training is needed? Or should it be out sourced?
Physics in Rope Rescue? Absolutely!
Apr 12, 2017
When it comes to rigging, the laws of physics reign supreme. Small systems (e.g., a single knot) and large systems (e.g., a back-tied, elevated anchor supporting a horizontal line across a ravine) will only function effectively if they reflect an understanding of basic principles.
Training Rescue Teams: What Standards Apply?
Aug 24, 2016
If you are not a rescue expert, the process of moving an injured person from a hazardous location to a place of safety may seem hopelessly complex. And like any other complex process one would assume that various organizations who specialize in technical rescue would issue standards to guide us in training rescue teams. So the question becomes: When you are training rescue teams, what standards apply?
Rope Rescue: Mainline/Belay or Two Tension?
Oct 7, 2015
Given that each rope is attached to the load and an anchor, at some point someone wondered if you could swap them out and switch between using a belay as a mainline and a mainline as a belay. In other words, could you keep both lines tensioned so that if one failed, the other line would prevent any appreciable freefall and associated shock loads?
Confined Space Rescue: Justifying your Team.
Aug 4, 2015
When you are asked the question: Is it worth having a rescue team? Common sense dictates that most employees should be able to respond appropriately to an incipient fire. Alarms and extinguishers have saved countless billions in damages and few would argue against spending money to ensure a safe and effective response in the few moments after a fire has started. Like structural fires, confined space emergencies are the result of a chain of events and if this chain can be broken early, lives can be saved.
Suspension Trauma: Cause and Effects
Jan 19, 2015
When you are hanging in a harness the leg straps cut off this return flow. Blood pools in the legs where the tissues scrub out all the oxygen and load it up with metabolic waste products. With this reduction of blood circulating in the body, the heart compensates by speeding up the heart rate to maintain blood flow to the brain. How long does this process take? It depends on many factors.
What is Technical Rescue?
Apr 17, 2014
Technical rescue is a transportation problem that needs to be solved quickly. The team needs to move someone (who is injured or otherwise incapacitated) from a hazardous or inaccessible location to a place of safety.
Rescue From IDLH Spaces: Always Required?
Apr 9, 2013
The requirement to provide a means of rescue when workers enter permit-required confined spaces is well known aspect of the OSHA regulations. But employers, who are rarely rescue experts, often do not know how these teams should be equipped and trained.