Personnel Working in Confined Space
Following are safety precautions to work in confined space.
- All persons working in a permit required confined space will be required to wear a safety harness to facilitate a rescue except:
- an entry where a horizontal rescue will be performed via a person already wearing wristlets or anklets (e.g., a person entering a tight pipe or cooler), the requirement for a safety harness may be waived, or where the entry requires maneuvering around in extremely tight quarters where the safety harness creates a potential hazard and adds negligible rescue value due to the configuration of the space. and
- The Entrants, Entry Supervisor and Rescue Team assess the risk of not wearing a safety harness and amend and approve the Entry and Rescue plans to indicate that the Entrants are not required to wear safety harnesses.
- The safety harness requirement applies to permit required confined spaces and does not include a lanyard or lifeline unless they are required for Immediately Dangerous to Life or Health (IDLH) or fall protection reasons. Harnesses are required so that if a rescue becomes necessary and someone has to enter a space for rescue, it is much easier to manipulate a victim using the harness as a handhold than to try and move them using their clothing as handholds.
- Other personal protective equipment is also required as identified during the Risk Assessment.
- According to the nature of the work and the risk, the working spell should be interrupted by rest periods during which the worker is able to leave the confined space and be in open air.
- Maximum working spells and rest periods should be defined on the permit to work, where appropriate.
- Each Entrant shall sign in and out of the permit-required space on a log sheet maintained by the Attendant.