Early 2017, an incident occurred that involved three members of the same family perishing on a farm in Regional NSW. Fumes overcame the first man. In an attempt to rescue him, his brother entered the water tank. He too was overcome. The wife then rang the neighbour, requesting assistance before she also entered the water tank in an unplanned rescue attempt. Unfortunately for her, this was her final act as the fumes also overcame her.
What makes this incident even more tragic, is that a near identical incident is detailed within “A farming danger… confined spaces.” A booklet developed to raise the awareness and dangers of confined spaces for the farming community. The similar incident was described as:
“Two brothers aged 24 and 26 died of carbon monoxide poisoning in a water tank on their father’s farm. The brothers had been using two petrol-driven pumps to empty the 50,000-litre underground tank because it had been polluted by a dead possum. During the job, the men discovered that neither of the pumps was fitted with a hose long enough to reach the bottom of the tank. In an attempt to get all the water out, one pump was lowered about a metre into the tank and secured by ropes. When the water was only about 240 millimetres deep, one brother got into the tank to put bricks on the hose to keep it on the bottom. He collapsed, and the other brother and a friend quickly climbed in to try and rescue him. The second brother collapsed, while the friend, who was also nearly overcome by fumes, managed to get out of the tank and get help. Both brothers were dead on arrival at the local hospital”.
In both incidents, people thought they were doing the right thing by entering the space to rescue their family members. Person after person entered, with the same result.
It is important that your workplace is adequately assessed for risks, controls are established (based on hierarchy of control) and that appropriate training is provided to the workers in that workplace. It is equally important that you promote within your organization that your workers can speak up if they feel like a work practice or environment is not safe. Demonstrate that it is not always ok to go along with the crowd.
Red Insight Professionals can assist your business in developing and rolling out proactive safety initiatives to assist in raising this awareness.
The confined spaces on farms booklet can be found at this link https://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/21629/Farmcon.pdf. Please share this information with any farmers that you know.
Here is also an excellent video depicting a confined space rescue where a son attempts to rescue his dad, followed by 2 others who also attempted rescue.