This week we saw OSHA issue two willful and three serious violations totaling $122,602 to a sperm bank for bulls (cattle) after an employee was asphyxiated while filling freezers with Liquid Nitrogen. And back in 2017, we saw another sperm bank, this one for humans, have a Nitrogen incident which claimed the life of a Deputy Sheriff and critically injured the supervisor of the business. I personally have witnessed in both my work and personal travels, liquid nitrogen present in businesses that I strongly suspected would not have the necessary safety programs, designs, knowledge, and training in place to manage such a hazardous material like liquid Nitrogen. So I thought it would be fitting to show how a business who either already has it or is considering using Liquid N2 should be doing so safely. Using one of my favorite sources, the International Fire Code, we can see the structure behind a well-established plan on how to design for and handle liquid N2. This will be a three (3) part article as there is a lot to discuss.
Liquid Nitrogen and the IFC (Part I)
