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Confined Spaces: We Have a Failure to Communicate

• Oct 21, 2018

A quote from the 1967 film "Cool Hand Luke" perfectly sums up the problems that we all face with confined spaces: "What we've got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach." Approximately 60 percent of all deaths in a confined space are rescuers¹, because the men and women inside the space can't communicate about the dangers within.

According to a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) study, the majority (more than 55 percent) of these deaths are because of atmospheric hazards. People routinely die because they don't know that the atmosphere they are about to walk into is filled with deadly concentrations of gas.

The best way to erase atmospheric-related confined space deaths is through proper use of gas detection and leveraging technology to communicate those hazards to all would-be rescuers. We need to solve our communication problem and understand how to properly rescue those we cannot reach.

Four Key Failures
Failure #1: No real-time Peer to Peer gas hazard communication: Historically, gas detection devices have been very good at alerting the person wearing the device of the hazards. However, they have been terrible at letting anyone else in the work group know about these hazards. Given the statistics on confined space deaths, shouldn't rescuers know about those atmospheric conditions before entering and attempting rescue? And shouldn't the attendant know about the entrants' readings in real time anyway?

With the advances in wireless communication in gas detection devices, we need to be clear on what the appropriate means for communicating this information should be. While devices that can communicate the readings to a remote person via the Internet could provide benefit, it does absolutely nothing for those in the immediate work group who could fall under the "would-be" aforementioned "60 percent" of rescuers. Peer to peer gas detection communication, such as LENS™ Wireless, is the best way to let those who would be in immediate danger know of the hazard, so they can make the best decisions in real time. Additionally, technologies such as LENS allow for communication between personal and area monitors so that users can easily place these monitors in spaces and communicate gas information without a person having to be in the atmosphere to begin with.

Simple communication investments can be made to easily engineer these ad hoc networks to deliver the critical information to those whose lives depend on it most.

Failure #2: Not abiding by the 2 by 2 rule: Before entering a confined space, one should test the atmosphere before entry. That is overall common sense and accepted knowledge. However, how one should go about that is one of the most commonly misunderstood items when it comes to proper gas detector use. To outline this juxtaposition, let me use a common example: If someone were fishing, would he immediately reel in his line if no fish bit, then determine no fish were in the lake? No! Well, why is that? We all know that fishing is a process; it takes time, skill, and patience to get what you are really looking for, right? Then explain to me why so many people think that they can drop a line of tubing into a space, wait a few seconds, then immediately determine that space is safe?

The 2 by 2 Rule was established to have simple, clear guidance to determine whether a space is safe. The rule states that it takes 2 minutes of sampling time PLUS . . . 2 seconds for every one foot of tubing. That is the amount of tubing connected, not the size of the space. Here is a common scenario: If sampling a 10-foot space with 20 feet of tubing attached, how long would that take to do the first sample? Two minutes and 40 seconds—that is 2 minutes plus 2 seconds per foot (20 feet of tubing). And keep in mind, that is per stratum.

Please stop "reeling in" your tubing so quickly. Proper testing takes time, skill, and patience. Use this time to be aware of all the other dangers you are about to face when entering this space.

Failure #3: Lowering monitors down on strings/ropes: I know this might offend those who routinely practice this, but come on, folks. It is the year 2018, and attaching a key piece of safety equipment to a string/rope is the best we can do to test the atmosphere? Please, just stop. Properly using a monitor with a pump (either integral or attached) is by far the best way to see the real-time readings and accurately sample the space. Otherwise, you are unable to properly see the gas readings in real time or prevent the monitor from unnecessary damage. Even worse, you could risk a life by attempting to rescue a monitor that was dropped into the space. Let's hope you brought a backup monitor in that case.

Failure #4: Lack of continuously monitoring: Just because the atmosphere was determined safe before you entered (assuming you used the 2 by 2 rule) . . . doesn't mean that atmosphere is now static and won't change. Often the work being performed in these spaces is dynamically changing the environment to disrupt old components and introduce new ones. The only way to determine that the atmosphere is always safe is to continuously monitor.

Just because you put a blower in the space to ventilate doesn't mean that a) the air being blown in is clean (especially when it is near an exhaust) or b) that the air flow is proper and can mitigate any hazards.

Practice the Scenario of an Atmospheric Incident
Please take time this month to review your confined space program and go through the scenario of an atmospheric incident. Put yourself in the shoes of the person who is about to enter a fatal atmosphere . . . did he or she check a box during training? Or does the person have the proper entry habits? Now, put yourself in the shoes of their co-workers/friends whose minds would be racing to help save them. Do they have all of the information they need about this environment in real time?

We don't have to accept a failure to communicate as the norm for confined space deaths. We can leverage technology and best practices to eliminate death on the job.

Reference
1. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/94-103/pdfs/94-103.pdf?id=10.26616/NIOSHPUB94103

This article originally appeared in the November 2018 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.