Page 18 - Occupational Health & Safety, November 2018

CONFINED SPACES
would that take to do the first sample? Two minutes and 40 sec- onds—that is 2 minutes plus 2 seconds per foot (20 feet of tubing). And keep in mind, that is per stratum.
Please stop “reeling in” your tubing so quickly. Proper testing takes time, skill, and patience. Use this time to be aware of all the other dangers you are about to face when entering this space.
Failure #3: Lowering monitors down on strings/ropes: I know this might offend those who routinely practice this, but come on, folks. It is the year 2018, and attaching a key piece of safety equip- ment to a string/rope is the best we can do to test the atmosphere? Please, just stop. Properly using a monitor with a pump (either in- tegral or attached) is by far the best way to see the real-time read- ings and accurately sample the space. Otherwise, you are unable to properly see the gas readings in real time or prevent the monitor from unnecessary damage. Even worse, you could risk a life by at- tempting to rescue a monitor that was dropped into the space. Let’s hope you brought a backup monitor in that case.
Failure #4: Lack of continuously monitoring: Just because the atmosphere was determined safe before you entered (assuming you used the 2 by 2 rule) . . . doesn’t mean that atmosphere is now static and won’t change. Often the work being performed in these spaces is dynamically changing the environment to disrupt old compo- nents and introduce new ones. The only way to determine that the atmosphere is always safe is to continuously monitor.
Just because you put a blower in the space to ventilate doesn’t mean that a) the air being blown in is clean (especially when it is near an exhaust) or b) that the air flow is proper and can mitigate any hazards.
Practice the Scenario of an Atmospheric Incident
Please take time this month to review your confined space program and go through the scenario of an atmospheric incident. Put your- self in the shoes of the person who is about to enter a fatal atmo- sphere . . . did he or she check a box during training? Or does the person have the proper entry habits? Now, put yourself in the shoes of their co-workers/friends whose minds would be racing to help save them. Do they have all of the information they need about this environment in real time?
We don’t have to accept a failure to communicate as the norm for confined space deaths. We can leverage technology and best practices to eliminate death on the job.
Kyle Krueger serves as district manager at Industrial Scientific Corporation.
REFERENCES
1. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/94-103/pdfs/94-103.pdf?id=10.26616/ NIOSHPUB94103
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