Although the industry has made major strides in regulation over the years, confined spaces are still one of Australia’s most dangerous environments to work in and can be exposed to atmospheric dangers, engulfment dangers and limited escape routes, resulting in an incident that could kill an employee in seconds. In 2024, 188 workplace fatalities occurred in Australian workplaces, while only a proportion of those were due to confined space incidents, these incidents were highly likely to result in multiple fatalities as rescuers who enter without appropriate preparation are often killed as well as the person they were attempting to rescue.
Workers Are Often Unprepared For The Speed Of Their Atmospheric Hazards
Hazardous atmospheres are the cause of more than 50 per cent of confined space deaths, according to industry research. Australia’s minimum standard is 19.5 per cent concentration and when oxidant levels drop close to 12 per cent, the person will become unconscious without warning, not in a flash, but at a rate set by the worker’s involuntarily slow failure to realise they are at risk. Chemical reactions, biological processes or adjacent activities outside of the area for the activity under investigation can generate toxic gases and flammable vapours to dangerous concentrations within the area. These conditions create a situation where the working environment in a confined space is unique in comparison with almost any other industrial environment.
That is why employers are moving towards insisting on this working in confined spaces course for entry workers before they enter a confined space and to understand the ‘how’ and ‘when’ of the effects of oxygen deficiency and toxic gas exposure, before it can incapacitate the worker is the knowledge that cannot be learned ‘on the job’. The same applies in the event of an emergency response. Hazard recognition and preparedness for hazard rescue, they are one and the same thing; a difference between a worker with and without knowledge can be easily detected from the data of fatalities.
Rescue Has A Hierarchy — And Skipping It Costs Lives
This is the structured approach to confined space rescue implemented to prevent rescuer incapacitation and involves only non-entry rescue techniques to retrieve an incapacitated worker from outside the confined space using tripods, winches and retrieval harnesses. When all non-entry methods have been considered to be impracticable, trained personnel will be permitted to enter; wearing respiratory protection, atmospheric monitoring equipment and using a rescue plan.
The findings from a historical analysis of confined space fatalities from the year 2000 to 2012 were as follows: 59 deaths and 29 traumatic deaths from 2013 to 2021 (equal and under stricter regulations over the years than previously). What fails time and time again is EMERGENCY PROCEDURE: a lack of rescue plan, a lack of trained personnel, and entry without the necessary equipment the hierarchy requires. It’s not an administrative procedure to heal the rescuers. It is that structure, used when applied, which keeps another “second casualty” at bay, and which so often occurs following the first.
The Standby Person Does Not Take A Passive Part
The Australian safety guidelines specify that an experienced standby person should stay outside the confined space during the entire entry operation, to watch the people inside, keep them in contact, and email out a receipt, record atmospheric readings, give information to outside emergency services if conditions get worse and turn on the recovery equipment if necessary. An example study done in the Rockingham District WA, revealed that more than 92 per cent of deaths in confined spaces were attributed to inadequate training, while around 90 per cent were caused by an absence of supervision or supervisory knowledge. The standby is the first point of contact with what may be a life-threatening incident when on a routine entry.
Mistakes Of A Rescue Operation That Result In A Fatality
More than 60 per cent of all confined space fatalities are caused by a would-be rescuer’s failure to wear the necessary respiratory protection, training and equipment to enter a confined space. A natural reaction is to take action right away; in response to an emergency in the atmosphere, it is a deadly one. The same conditions lead to a second death at the same time as the first death, as there is an unprotected rescuer. The other common error is assuming that this is a safe space because they were once in there without any trouble. Contaminant and oxygen concentrations may vary rapidly. Monitoring the atmosphere on a constant basis is recognised as a “contributing factor” to serious incidents, not an “oversight” that happens from time to time.
In fact, the best rescues are based on measurable risk information rather than on generic procedures. Each confined space, like all other spaces, has specific conditions, dimensions, access arrangements and risks, requiring specific retrieval techniques and equipment specifications, as well as response time estimates for external emergency services to respond. Employer investigations into confined space deaths revealed that, typically, a small minority of workplaces have a rescue plan in full effect and that a confined space is estimated to be 50%-100% more hazardous than any other type of job. This means that scenario-based training exercises for confined space entrants are warranted along with regular competency checks, and the development of documented plans around the space.
