Story missing from my TV: Six Dead at Colorado Dairy

[k0rs]

24. I've actually had...

...formal training in entering confined spaces and confined space rescue, or unfortunately what is more often retrieval (as opposed to rescue).

This isn't a small family farm, it's a huge industrial operation. I don't know what policy and requirements they have in place, but they should have a comprehensive safety plan. Perhaps they had a viable plan and this is a case of worker non-compliance. It will come out in the investigation.

What should have been in place, BEFORE the accident was:

1. A formal process to identify confined spaces. Identified spaces are then clearly marked as such. Confined spaces may not be particularly obvious. They may even not have a roof. Heavy toxic gases can collect in such apparently open spots.

2. Worker training to inform the worker of proper procedures for entering these spaces. In this case probably in Spanish as well as English, emphasizing never to follow a collapsed worker into a confined space without proper preparation. "You can't hold your breath." It doesn't work. H2S (Hydrogen Sulfide) can overcome an individual with amazing speed.

3. Proper safety gear to allow entry without personal hazard. This includes breathing equipment, gas analyzers and retrieval equipment. Yeah, it's a hassle to set up, but it's also a hassle for your family to arrange a funeral. A handheld gas analyzer isn't particularly expensive (especially compared to the alternative) and alerts to dangerous gases within seconds.

My employer was in a deep red area and we had many ultra-conservative managers and employees. Yet they were absolutely anal about OSHA compliance and safety training, to their everlasting credit. I spent days rigged with breathing apparatus and retrieval equipment inside confined spaces littered with pipes, tools and other hazards to make training more difficult. It's astonishingly hard to remove a 150lb test dummy from a cluttered, claustrophobic confined space. "Dead weight" takes on a whole new meaning. Imagine how difficult it is to remove a real human without doing further damage his/her body, or your own.