In this episode Mark Reggers welcomes guest Ash Mayor. Ash, a specialist trainer within 3M’s Safety Training team for the Personal Safety Division in Australia and New Zealand joins us to discuss confined space identification.

Confined spaces are usually not designed for people to work in. Not all employers and operators understand what constitutes a “confined space”, nor the dangers associated with working in such environments where hazardous atmospheres can quickly develop. So exactly what is a confined space and why are they so dangerous?

Guest Bio:

Ash Mayor (pictured left) is a Training Specialist with 3M’s Safety Training Team. He has a broad range of hands on experience gained over the past 23 years in performing confined space entry, management, rescue and maintenance tasks in a spectrum of confined space applications. Ash has a background in the Royal Australian Navy with a marine engineering trade, he joined 3M Australia & New Zealand via the Capital Safety acquisition in 2015.

Ash has instructed across several industries over this time and has a wealth of experience from working as a boilermaker on maintenance crews, to planning, supervising and managing confined space work on major shutdowns, supervising maintenance crews and contractors, and developing SOPS, SWMS and undertaking incident investigations and root cause analysis.

Ash is responsible for operating 3M’s mobile road show throughout Australia, conducting workshops and seminars on the latest information and products for height safety, confined space and industrial & technical rescue. He also delivers training for the Oil & Gas, Wind Energy, Transportation, Construction, Mining, Resources and Urban Utilities sectors.

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In this episode, Mark & Ash discuss the following:

• What is a confined space?
• What are some typical confined spaces?
• Does size, including exit & entry point sizes matter when identifying a confined space?
• Are there spaces which are generally not a confined space?
• What is a restricted space and is there a difference between a confined space and a restricted space?
• What makes a confined space so hazardous?
• Why do people enter confined spaces if they are so hazardous?
• Why is it that 2 people can think a space is and isn’t a confined space when in legislation it is clearly defined?
• Where can workplaces go to get more detailed information on confined space identification?

The failure to properly identify a confined space can have drastic and often devastating consequences should an accident occur. In the event of an incident within the confined space, rescue measures are often initiated in an unplanned and unrehearsed fashion with untrained employees and inadequate equipment, leading to risk to the rescuers which often results in them succumbing to the same fate as the worker being rescued. Confined spaces can be a death trap in waiting, proper identification and classification of the space is critical. Tune in to the first episode of our confined space series as we cover the topic of confined space identification.

Additional Resources:

• Podcast Transcript
• Safe Work Australia – Confined Spaces
• SafeWork NSW – Confined Spaces
• QLD Workplace Health & Safety – Confined Spaces
• WorkSafe Victoria – Confined Spaces
• SafeWork ACT – Confined Spaces
• SafeWork SA – Confined Spaces
• WorkSafe NT – Confined Spaces Code of Practice
• WorkSafe WA – Confined Spaces
• SafeWork Tasmania
• Comcare – Confined Spaces
• WorkSafe NZ – Confined Spaces
• Australian Standard 2865 – Confined Spaces
• 3M Confined Space Plan and Prepare

Contact a 3M Safety Specialist at scienceofsafetyanz@mmm.com for more information.