Entry and Exit

Okay, so we have done our pre-checklist on our person who is going to enter here. Jim now fully attached, as we can see, and he is attached to his rear attachment point. It does not matter whether it is the forefront or the rear attachment point, so long as he has that attachment. What is going to happen now, Jim is going to make that entry down into the confined space. And as he makes his entry down there, this attachment is designed so that if ever he does miss a stepping, because there is stepping in there, that it will protect him from hitting the ground. It will minimise the distance and consequence of the fall. Whilst he is making that entry, I have to log the time he actually goes in, and obviously talk to him while he is down there, making sure he is okay. Our communication system here is verbal, rather than using radios, because he is in my line of sight, and I can see exactly what is going on. Whilst he is down there carrying out his tasks, what we do need to think about is, because he has actually got step points there to go down, it is okay him having a single line for protection. The reason why it is okay is because he has got his three points of contact whilst he is on his way down there.

If I was to actually lower him into that confined space, then I would have to put a secondary line, a backup line on him, as that is an industry requirement. That way, if the main line was to fail, he does have a backup line there to help protect him. So, he is down there, he is doing the task that is required. The gas monitor is in place down there on the rope. He does not need one on himself, because the environment where he is, is quite a tight environment. It is not as if he is going to be going away from the entry point. He is carrying out his task and once he has carried out his task, I will be here, making sure I am done, constantly communicating with him. If anything was to happen to him down there, my role and responsibility then would be, priority him, and also contacting the emergency services, or the people who are there to help with the rescue side of things onsite. We must remember though, we cannot use the emergency services as our first point of rescue.

Jim has now just carried out his job, and he is on his way back up now. As you can see, both Jim and myself are still attached, because here, under the working at height regulations, we have a potential fall, and it could be a serious fall if we did not have these attachments. So, we stay attached, all the tools and equipment are out. We also need to take into consideration as well the ventilation of the area where we work in. Prior to us going in there, we did actually go around and open all the manhole covers around the area to allow a natural ventilation to come through, so as it gave Jim a nice air environment down there. And we did constantly monitor that air just to make sure it stayed that way. If we found that we could not get the natural ventilation to occur, we might have to look at introducing forced ventilation. This is where we would be using a mechanical means of ventilation and actually forcing air into that environment to give us that level of air we need where we are working.

But for this occasion, as you can see, we did have natural air down there, the job has been carried out, the task has been completed. All we need to do now is make sure we move everything out of the environment, make sure we put the manhole covers back down everywhere, and we can actually sign off the job. The other thing that I do need to do is a sign, stating that Jim has just entered and exited the confined space, so as all that relevant paperwork is in place. All we are going to do now is, we are going to take the gas monitor out of place, so as we can put the hatchback over the hole. At this point now, we are safe to un-attach, because there are no fall areas there where we could actually fall and cause ourselves injuries. I will un-attach Jim first. There you go Jim, you are unattached. And now, I am able to un-attach myself. And what that allows us to do now is to go and sort all the equipment out, and put it back to where it belongs.