As a follow-up to my 2014 post, Are you maintaining your LEVEL A suits “by the book”? , where I covered the care/testing requirements for my brand of LEVEL A suits, I wanted to make sure the word is out… ALL LEVEL A suits built to ASTM F1461-17 REQUIRE some specific testing and inspection in order to be used for their full intended life span. Failure to meet these inspections/testing will mean an early expiration from service! Basically, ALL reputable manufacturers will require these fully-encapsulated suits to be “pressure tested” at the following frequencies:
- Upon receipt to ensure no damage has occurred during shipment
- Prior to first donning of garment
- After a garment is worn and before the garment is made available for reuse.
- Annually
A lot of providers will have three (3) testing requirements:
- Upon receipt to ensure no damage has occurred during shipment
- After a garment is worn and before the garment is made available for reuse
- Annually
MAKE CERTAIN YOU KNOW YOUR BRAND’s REQUIREMENTS!
It works out like this:
- We test them when we get them!
- We test them if they get donned, but NO CHEMICAL exposure (e.g. the entry team’s get trashed, but the back-up team who was never used and thuse their suits saw ZERO exposure – can be pressure tested and put back into service if they pass their test/inspection).
- If the suits never get donned throughout the year, then we MUST fully inspect and test at least once each year.
We should have WRITTEN procedures for conducting these pressure tests, just like we have written MI procedures for other critical components in our workplace. These suits should be loaded into the MI PM program to ensure there is a work order that will come up ANNUALLY to ensure these tests are being performed.
And if we plan to hire a contractor to perform these tests AND your facility is a PSM/RMP covered facility, the contractor should be managed as a PSM/RMP contractor.
If we ever find ourselves inside these suits we know one thing is certain – all else has failed us! Making darn sure this last line of defense does not fail us is especially critical for our safe return home to our families!