Confined Space Rescue Teams - In-House or Outside?

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Article Title:

Confined Space Rescue Teams - In-House or Outside?

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Article Description:

When you have permit-required confined spaces at your

facility, you are required to establish procedures for how a

worker is rescued from the space in the event of an injury

or accident. Basically, there are two options for rescue:

use in-house personnel to rescue the worker by entering the

confined space and use outside emergency personnel to rescue

workers. Learn more...

Additional Article Information:

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707 Words; formatted to 65 Characters per Line

Distribution Date and Time: 2010-10-28 10:00:00

Written By: Rathi Niyogi

Copyright: 2010

Contact Email: mailto:rathi.niyogi@...

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Confined Space Rescue Teams - In-House or Outside?

Copyright © 2010 Rathi Niyogi

CriticalTool, Inc.

http://www.criticaltool.com/

When you have permit-required confined spaces at your facility,

you are required to establish procedures for how a worker is

rescued from the space in the event of an injury or accident.

Basically, there are two options for rescue: use in-house

personnel to rescue the worker by entering the confined space and

use outside emergency personnel to rescue workers. (A third

option, rescuing the workers in a confined space using in-house

personnel who do not enter the space is can also be utilized.

However, since, should they fail, another rescue option would

need to be employed, it is really a subset of these two.)

Points To Consider

Utilizing an in-house rescue team for confined space rescue

involves significant time, effort, and resources. For that

reason, it is important to carefully consider whether or not you

want to have an in-house rescue team (or even if, given

circumstances and resource limitation, whether you are able to)

or outside emergency services. Here are some things to consider

when deciding what type of rescue team is appropriate:

Outside rescue services:

* What response time will be required? If you have confined

spaces that include IDLH (immediately dangerous to life and

health) atmospheres, it will require a much quicker response time

(one which, in effect, requires that a rescue team be standing by

outside the space) than a space that only has mechanical hazards.

* How quickly can outside services reach your facility? If

you're fortunate enough to be located immediately adjacent to a

fire station that is staffed 24/7, then it makes your decision to

use outside services much easier. Most facilities aren't that

lucky. You need to consider how close outside emergency services

are, average response time, and staffing-volunteer services are

likely to take a few minutes more to arrive than a services

dispatching from a regularly staffed station. If outside services

cannot meet the response time needed for rescue, then you will

need to develop your own in-house team.

* Is the outside service willing to provide confined space

rescue at your facility? Particularly in times of tight budgets,

training for emergency services may not be adequate to perform

appropriate confined space rescue, and they may not be able to

take on the additional training (and possible equipment purchase)

to provide confined space rescue that is specific to your

facility. OSHA has indicated that an employer may not rely on a

rescuer who has declined to provide rescue services.

If you do select an outside service for confined space rescue, it

is incumbent upon you as the employer to contact the service and

ensure that they meet OSHA requirements (training, equipment,

etc.) for confined space rescue.

Inside rescue services:

* How will you staff the rescue team? If you use an in-house

rescue team, you need to know who will be on that team. Can you

break those workers free from their work when there is an

emergency quickly enough to make a timely rescue? Do you have

multiple shifts where confined space entry takes place and can

you ensure that you have the appropriate rescue personnel are

available on all of those shifts?

* Are you willing to commit to training the rescue team? Rescue

teams need to know far more than simple confined space entry.

They need to know how to enter all of the types of confined

spaces on your facility, including those that may have IDLH

atmospheres; rescue techniques for each of the confined spaces on

your facility; medical evaluation of an injured worker and first

aid; and proper " packaging " of an injured worker for transport

out of a confined space. Training also needs to include hands-on

practice with the rescue equipment they will use in a space or

spaces (or similar spaces) where they will perform rescues and

needs to be regularly refreshed to ensure the team maintains its

skills.

* Are you willing to commit to purchasing the appropriate rescue

equipment? Rescue equipment specific for your situation, such as

winches, monitoring equipment, and personal protective equipment

(PPE) such as airline respirators with escape bottles or SCBA

(self-contained breathing apparatus) need to be available for the

rescue team. Once purchased, the equipment needs to be properly

maintained so that it is immediately available in the event of an

emergency.

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Rathi Niyogi is the CEO of CriticalTool, a national

distributor of Confined Space Rescue Equipment and Confined

Space Blowers (http://www.criticaltool.com/blowers.html). If

you thought this article was helpful, additional information

on the Basics of Confined Space can be found here

http://www.criticaltool.com/confined-space-the-basics.html