What do you get when you have no “qualified/competent” person on site who fully understands the implementation of a Confined Space program AND OSHA’s eTool Industry page is being read literally by the unqualified worker? The answer: SERIOUS PRCS PROBLEMS! I had a smile on my face the entire time I was thinking about how…...
With year 2020 already claiming 7 lives inside PRCSs within the USA, I have to ask the question: Has OSHA’s Permit-Required Confined Space standard meet its goal? In OSHA’s Preamble for 1910.146, published in 1993, OSHA stated: OSHA has determined that permit spaces pose significant risks to employees (62 fatalities and 12,643 injuries and illnesses annually) and estimates that compliance…...
Why is this article posted in the Permit-Required Confined Space section of the website? Because there seem to be a large number of safety professionals that are under the impression that ANY occupational hazard can turn a confined space into a Permit-Required Confined Space. Noise is a recognized occupational hazard – I think we can…...
Last year I was attending some continuing education for my hazardous materials work. The instructor was outstanding until he went on his tirade against Nitrogen (N2). He was factually correct when he stated that N2 was a leading killer within confined spaces, but he went off the rails when he tried to convince me that…...
Attached is the written program for General Industry facilities which incorporate OSHA’s newer Confined Spaces in Construction requirements. It is my recommendation that we UPDATE our written program that was based on the older 1910.146 standard to include all the improvements in 1926.1201 – .1213. We should also understand that even though our facility may…...
Too many safety professionals still to this day think that to reclassify a Permit-Required Confined Space (PRCS) is simply to lock out all the energy sources that made the space a PRCS. In August of last year, I posted a story where I asked the 30,000 members of the SAFTENG network if an enclosed palletizer…...
At 2:00 p.m. on May 20, 2014, Employee #1 was in a tank railcar confined space containing residual sweet crude oil without prior entry assessment and without wearing a harness with stand-by extraction equipment. While Employee #1 was shoveling crude oil inside a permit-required confined space tank railcar. Employee #1 was wearing a full-face supplied-air…...
At 3:15 p.m. on May 31, 2019, an employee was scraping oil sludge towards the bottom drain of a rail car when coworkers noted the absence of normal working sounds. The coworkers performed an entry rescue and found the employee unresponsive due to anoxia and chemical inhalation. The employee was killed…. Membership Required You must...
There is a “Note” in OSHA’s Permit-Required Confined Space (PRCS) Standard(s) that seems to be overlooked by many who read the standard. This “Note” is maybe the most important “Note” I have come across over my nearly 30 years in safety, so I am at a loss as to why so many misunderstand or overlook…...
I was unable to find an OSHA case file on this; possibly because this was a state-run project. But I searched under both company’s names and no case file was found…. Membership Required You must be a member to access this content.View Membership LevelsAlready a member? Log in here...
On July 2, 1998, Employee #1 entered the underground vault of domestic well #8 to check the aquifer level without first testing the atmosphere. An oxygen-deficient atmosphere existed and Employee #1 died as a result of asphyxia. OSHA Case File… Membership Required You must be a member to access this content.View Membership LevelsAlready a member?...
This video, from AsiaWorkSAFE, is about lessons learned due to non-compliance to safe work practices when working in permit-required confined space. Safety procedures must be adhered to at ALL times. If not, the consequences are everlasting and far-reaching. This incident happened in an open pit with a fixed ladder. One entrant entered to fix a rope…...
