If you work in the construction or other manual labor industries, odds are you sometimes have to work in small spaces. Whether you’re working in a manhole or underneath a crawl space, these tight spaces can present numerous dangers for workers. Thankfully, a couple years ago the Occupational Health and Safety Administration passed some new regulations to help protect workers in these small spaces. Below, we take a look at these required protections, and we explain what you should do if you suffer a work injury in a confined space.
Protections For Working In A Confined Space
Just a couple years ago in 2015, OSHA decided to restrengthen the standard protections offered to workers who routinely operate in these small spaces. The new standards applied to spaces like manholes, crawl spaces, attics and corridors, and here’s a basic recap of what they called for:
- Better coordination if multiple employers are working on one site (so one team’s generator giving off carbon monoxide isn’t positioned near a confined space being worked on by another team).
- Requires a competent person to evaluate confined spaces to determine if permits are needed.
- Requires continuous atmospheric monitoring, when possible.
- Requires continuous monitoring of potential engulfment hazards.
- Allows for suspension of permit instead of cancellation of confined space permit in the event the conditions change or an unexpected event calls for a re-evaluation of safe practices.
So if you work in small spaces and you know that these regulations are not being followed, speak up, because your safety is at risk.
Confined Space Injuries
Explosions, the inhalation of toxic fumes, flash flooding and electrocutions are ways that workers are unfortunately injured in confined spaces, and if your employer doesn’t have the right permits or doesn’t want to see their premiums increase, they may try to talk you out of filing for workers’ compensation. Remember that you are entitled to work injury benefits, and your employer may not legally punish you for pursuing these benefits.
Since confined space injuries have the tendency to be more severe, you are going to want to maximize your compensation package, and the best way to do that is with a workers’ compensation firm like Hey Workers. At our firm, we’ve helped countless individuals prepare, file and win compensation awards for their confined space injuries, and we can do the same for you.
To learn more about how we can help you, or to sit down with one of our attorneys, free of charge, and talk about the specifics of your case, reach out to our firm today at (844) 439-9675.
