Page 80 - Occupational Health & Safety, July/August 2019

RESPIRATORY PROTECTION
Respiratory Safety: An Interview with Industry Experts
BY ROBYN BROOKS
Imagine you are an operator at a Chlor-Alkali fa- cility. While performing your morning rounds, a leak develops in nearby piping. It isn’t visible, but you are suddenly aware of the distinct aroma. It’s
your first day doing rounds alone, as you just passed the operator exam last week. Thoughts quickly come to mind, all at once: “Where is the chlorine escaping? Did I tighten that valve all the way? Maybe I should go investigate.” But then you recall the escape respira- tor drills from training. Unclipping and donning your escape respirator, looking around for others in the area, and glancing down to make sure your radio is in hand, you head for the exit.
When in fresh air, you radio the control room. The lead operator commends you for not investigating while using your escape respirator and acknowledges how tempting it is to “just check one thing” while us- ing a respirator not fit for the job. The lead operator alerts the surrounding area that a leak investigation is under way and to steer clear, then instructs you to go back to the control room to upgrade your respiratory protection and take someone with you to investigate the source of the leak.
Relieved to have additional help, you and your partner discover it was indeed the valve as you sus- pected, tighten it, and follow the air monitoring and reporting protocols. After the chlorine concentra- tion falls back to zero on the perimeter and handheld monitors, the lead operator gives an all-clear.
For personnel who are involved in the manufac- ture, handling, or emergency response of hazard- ous chemicals, proper training on respirator safety is extremely important. We talked to two industry experts, Brian Dailey (Global Emergency Response Leader and National Pro Board Certified Hazard- ous Materials Technician, The Chemours Company) and Vic McMurray (Responsible Care Director, Olin Corporation), to learn more about common miscon- ceptions regarding respirator safety from their exten- sive knowledge and firsthand experience in the field. Combined, Brian and Vic have more than 64 years of experience in the chemical industry. In this interview, they share several important insights about respirator safety that are sometimes overlooked.
Interviewer: “Why is proper training on respira- tor safety so important?”
Brian: “You can end up putting yourself in a life- threatening situation without even knowing it, with- out the proper training. A correlation I would make is, I have children and I wouldn’t put my 16-year-old behind the wheel and say, ‘Go drive the car.’ Without the proper training, you become a threat to yourself, basically. You have to know how the respirator func- tions and the principles behind how they work and
when they don’t work before you can get the benefit from the respirator. So you can actually put yourself in a bad situation, thinking that you’re protected, and you’re really not if you don’t have the right training.
“Something else to add is that, unfortunately, im- proper respirator use may not affect someone right away. So you can have an acute exposure, which you would see immediate implications and negative im- pact to the user right away, but on the other hand, without the training and the proper use, you can also end up with a chronic exposure over time. If you work with chemicals all the time and you are not trained properly or you’re not wearing the right size respira- tor, the exposure may be chronic, and you may not see the effects for maybe 20 years.”
Vic: “Let’s face it, the respiratory system of the human body is very, very sensitive. So anything that enters your lungs, by design, your lungs are trying to absorb. Any time you’re breathing in something acid- ic, it causes the lungs not to work properly. It can be a short-term impact or it could be a long-term impact. That’s how you breathe in oxygen—that is how you survive.
“Your lungs are critical to life, they are an ‘essen- tial to life’ organ. The main reason for respiratory protection is ensuring we do not accidentally expose ourselves.”
Interviewer: “What aspects of respirator safety do you feel are often overlooked, that could lead (or often do lead) to serious injuries?”
Brian: “The thing that is often overlooked is prop- er fit testing, and not just fit testing but once you’re fit tested, using the respirator that you’re fit tested on. For instance, in the chemical industry you have many different needs for respirators, so you have different sizes. You have the ability to get a small, medium, or large respirator. Well, as part of the fit testing process, they pick the size respirator that you’re supposed to wear—and that’s what you’re fit tested on. I have seen in the field in the past, when operators don’t have that particular respirator available—for instance, they test- ed on a medium and they pick up a large respirator because it’s still the same type of respirator, it’s just a different size. They will put that on because it’s still a respirator and they say, ‘I’m supposed to wear one, I’m just going to use this one,’ instead of taking the time to get the size that is the right size respirator for them. I think that is a big one.
“Another one is proper selection of cartridges. For cartridge type respirators, there are many different cartridges that are used for different chemicals. A lot of us work in industry with different chemicals that have different needs for different cartridges. For in- stance, in the hazmat world, there \[are\] organic vapor
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