It happened several years ago, but I still think about it often. I was the plant safety representative. I had a fair knowledge of general safety and, like many safety professionals, had developed an interest in the safety arena after many years as a volunteer firefighter. But no amount of training or experience could have prepared me for the death of my co-worker. What helped the most was having an incident response plan to fall back on. Let me go back to that painful time and tell you what happened.

Getting the Call

It started when I heard my name being called over the plant's PA system. I sensed by the frantic tone of the page that something was terribly wrong. I was right. An employee was found "down" in one of the machine rooms. Grabbing my medical kit, I ran for the machine room. I tried to tell myself, "Ok, be calm. Make sure the area is safe. Check the ABCs," and so on.

On my way, I passed a co-worker whose words chilled me to the very core: "He's dead. He's gone."

Seconds later I was at the scene with the victim. He was a friend, a good friend. And it was evident that he'd been dead for quite a while.

Going Through the Motions

I would have rather been a thousand different places at the time, but the main thought that kept surfacing was "you have a job to do." The first part of that job was to secure the scene.

A co-worker and I inspected the room to ensure that it was safe, that nothing in the area caused the man's death or would injure the people entering the room. (I learned later that his death was immediate and due to natural causes.) We roped-off the area and covered the body with a blanket.

Other personnel were following the response procedure: The 911 dispatcher had been contacted for outside assistance and appropriate company personnel had been notified. The EMS, police officers, Justice of the Peace and hearse arrived. They did their jobs and left. Some of the company's senior management also began arriving.

By the next day, the company had assembled an internal investigation team not only to determine what caused the employee's death, but to make sure our response plans and notification procedures were in place and working properly.

The Effect on the Workplace

We were a small staff. Many of the employees had known the victim since childhood and the death deeply affected us all. The company contracted with a critical incident stress debriefing group to help people at the company deal with the death. The debriefing group met with all employees and discussed how we should be feeling. Many employees were distraught and confused; we welcomed the opportunity to express our thoughts.

Conclusion

Fortunately, our company had guidelines in place that helped keep the investigation and subsequent events orderly. The internal investigation concluded that personnel had done a good job in responding to the event. If your company does not have guidelines to follow in case of a serious accident or death, I urge you to establish them and to review them annually to ensure they remain current. Next week, I'll share with you some things you should consider when developing a procedure for handling a workplace fatality.

MEMBERS' REPLIES
Gas Detectors: Calculation Clarification

Comment
In his article of August 29, 2006 entitled "Selecting a Gas Detector", Jason Barlow states that "it takes 60,000 ppm of any gas to lower the oxygen from 20.9% (normal) to 19.5% (alarm point)." Correct me if I'm wrong, but the difference between 20.9% and 19.5% is 1.4%. Therefore, it would take 14,000 ppm of another gas (1.4% multiplied by 10,000 ppm per 1%) to reduce the oxygen to the alarm point. Obviously, I'm not advocating the use of an oxygen meter for detecting toxic gases.

Ryan Stewart, MSc.(A), ROH, CRSP
Industrial Hygienist
Canadian Fertilizers Limited

Comment
In reviewing the gas detection article, I noticed that a 60,000 ppm concentration of a chemical would only lower the oxygen level by less than 2%. 60,000 ppm is 6%. The math does not work. I agree that 60,000 ppm is very serious, but also for most chemicals levels between 1,000 and 5,000 ppm would be above the IDLH and in fact many are less than 1000 ppm.

Alan Johnson, CIH, CSP

AUTHOR REPLY

Thank you for the feedback. I hope this calculation will help clarify my statements:

Electrochemical Oxygen Sensors (The Interference Gas Error Phenomenon)

Jason Barlow
Wescast Industries Inc.

Devastation in Mexico City leads to safer building codes

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

September 19, 1985

By Catherine Jones

21 years ago, Mexico City changed dramatically when an earthquake measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale shook the region. Affecting an area of approximately 825,000 square kilometers, the earthquake was felt by almost 20 million people from Guatemala to Texas.

But it was the devastation of Mexico City that is most remembered. In that city alone, 412 buildings collapsed and another 3,000 were seriously damaged, including hospitals, government buildings and approximately 100,000 housing units. In the city of Guzman, Jalisco, 60% of the buildings were destroyed.

In all, the earthquake injured 30,000, left homeless 100,000 and killed 9,500 people (some reports place this figure as high 35,000). It all took less than 5 minutes.

The response from authorities was almost as quick. In no time, building codes were revised and structures deemed to be unsafe were demolished and rebuilt to safer standards. Periodic earthquake drills became the norm. And an alarm system was installed to alert authorities when seismic activity under the Pacific Ocean is detected.

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