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Confined Space Fall Protection: Hazards, Highlights and How to Keep Workers Safe
Identify, Evaluate and Control Hazards
While confined spaces may contain elevated chances of risk or unique hazards not found elsewhere in a facility or job site, assessing and addressing the fall hazards should follow the same procedure per the fall protection program. Before any confined space work is performed, employers must conduct a hazard assessment to identify the fall hazards present and evaluate solutions to mitigate any found hazards. (Note: the hazard assessment should be performed in conjunction with the organization’s Competent Person to ensure compliance with OSHA and ANSI standards as well as any corporate safety policies).
A confined space fall hazard assessment should begin with a visual inspection of the work area. Employers may find it beneficial to include one or more workers working in the confined space to assist with the hazard assessment. Frontline workers can provide helpful insight into the potential effectiveness of proposed solutions. Hazard mitigation methods become useless if workers think them too cumbersome to comply. Sometimes, safety professionals can get too caught up in conjecturing standards and legal compliance and forget the most critical component of user compliance: the user. Often, the best safety solution is the one workers will use each time.
It is also imperative to attempt to eliminate the fall hazard before simply mitigating the risk. For example, solutions like guardrails are much more effective than fall arrest equipment in removing hazards and decreasing risk for the worker. Fall arrest solutions should only be considered once preventative solutions like guardrails or fall restraint systems are ruled out due to infeasibility.
The final component of controlling hazards is preparing for worst-case scenarios. Any job site with ongoing confined space work environments must also be equipped with appropriate OSHA-approved rescue equipment in the event that an employee is unable to exit the hazardous area without assistance. Emergency services, 9-1-1 and medical assistance should always be called if a fall incident occurs, but that does not relieve the employer of their duty to have equipment on hand to perform self-rescue methods before first responders arrive at the scene. Simulated rescue training practices can help ensure workers understand how to properly use rescue equipment and increase the chances of a successful rescue should one be necessary to perform.
This article originally appeared in the September 2024 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.