Confined Space Awareness
Confined spaces kill rescuers — over half of confined-space deaths are people who went in after the first victim. That statistic is the whole talk.
How to run it
Read it through once, then talk it — don't recite it. Five minutes at the start of the shift, crew standing where the work happens. Under O. Reg. 213/91, s. 14(3)–(4), the talk is held by a supervisor or a competent person the supervisor appoints — and the sign-in sheet is what proves it happened.
Talk through these points
- Know what counts: tanks, pits, vaults, crawlspaces — not designed for people, limited ways in and out, and able to hold a bad atmosphere.
- The air lies. Oxygen-deficient or toxic atmospheres have no look and often no smell — testing is the only way to know, before entry and continuously.
- No assessment, no entry. If the space hasn't been assessed and the entry planned, the job hasn't started yet.
- An attendant stays outside, in contact, with one job: nobody else goes in, and rescue gets called properly.
- If someone goes down inside: DO NOT follow them in. That instinct is the killer. Call the rescue plan.
- Ventilation, isolation of lines feeding the space, and lockout of what moves inside — the setup IS the safety.
Ask the crew
- What on our sites actually qualifies as a confined space that we treat casually?
- If someone dropped in a vault right now, what would each of us actually do?
- Who's trained on the gas monitor — and when was it calibrated?
The answers are the real talk. If a question lands on a live hazard, write it down and assign it a name and a date.
Paper it
A talk without a record didn't happen, as far as anyone who asks is concerned. Print these free:
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