As often happens, recent events inspired my topic for this month’s Safety 365. A friend called to ask what his company needed to do for confined space training. His company routinely enters pump houses and tanks in the course of day-to-day activities. After assuring him that his upcoming training would cover all the pertinent topics, I began to think about how many other drillers out there who believe they do things correctly but could use a little brush-up in the hazards and mitigations of working in confined spaces.
Recently on social media, I saw a post showing someone going down a hand dug well with no type of fall or rescue protection. Having seen that, I can’t say it surprises me that, on average, two workers die every week in the U.S. in accidents related to confined spaces. Maybe we all need a little better understanding of the risks.