As I rant on about validating and verifying our safety data and defining and quantifying our safety processes, I wanted to share another incident where we learned the hard way. I managed a chemical facility with many corrosives; thus, eyewashes and safety showers were important items in the mitigation layer. And as most of us have experienced, these items had a shady history of their weekly “inspections.” So like any respecting safety pro, I instituted an audit process of these required weekly “inspections.” The trend of these weekly inspections was going in the right direction, and we exceeded 90% on-time inspections, which was an improvement from the 40% we started with. But then it happened. We had an acid exposure event, and when the employee used the shower, it did not work.
The operator then traveled to the next shower, which did not work either. Our EW/SS stations were alarmed, so the control panel operator got the shower alarm, sounded the unit alarm, and announced the shower number over the unit PA system and the ER radio channel. But as you can guess, when help arrived at the shower that alarmed, no one was there; the shower was activated, but no water was flowing. Was this a false alarm of some type? So luckily, the ERT Commander ordered a unit headcount, and sure enough, one operator was missing. He was found 10 minutes later at another EW/SS unit.
NOTE: the alarm system was ONLY capable of receiving a single alarm. Thus when he pulled the shower at the 2nd station, the control panel operator had not reset the system; this prevented the system from alarming again at the control panel.
