CSB Safety Video: Hazards of Nitrogen Asphyxiation

POV: it’s 2023 and you just learned that Alabama is very close to executing someone with nitrogen asphyxiation.

Low oxygen spaces also include chain lockers onboard ship - all that wet iron chain put into a small space, then rusting and using up all the oxygen in doing so.
Many seamen have died due to this, after entering the chain locker. Nothing flammable, no problems - right?.

United States 🇺🇸 is the kind of ppl that tell us for how many seconds heat up our food on a microwave. But ok we fail to follow such procedures instructions chemical plants is totally different we must follow detailed procedures and training by text book. Most of these accidents are caused by poor judgment human errors

If oxygen drops to 19% can't you just breath faster to survive?

How can I die at work?
CSB, "Let me count the ways!"

It is also possible that the tape fell down from one of them & thus they didn't want to obtain the 2nd permit!!!
Any one with proper safety equipment/breathing apparatus chould have gone inside without purging the vessel :( !!!

Many hardworking people died wrongly thinking they can cheat death in such a deadly atmosphere (oxygen deprived or poisonous...H2S CO, CO2...)
This should be the 1st safety lesson:
1- do not enter a confined space without checking the atmosphere first (using a calibrated gas detector)
2- do not go inside without a safety harness with a safety rope attached & at least one man holding it (if they just did that the 1st worker might have been saved by pulling him out once he collapsed & the 2nd worker wouldn't have risked his life to save his colleague!
3- don't rush to save your buddy in such a situation, you will not be able to help him & you'll both die :(
Try to find any means to pull him out or wear a proper breathing apparatus before trying to rescue him

We had an N2 asphyxiation incident in a space hardware testing lab I worked in. We had environmental (vacuum) chambers and we purged them with Nitrogen. You were supposed to open the door and go do something else for 15min. He stuck his whole upper body into the chamber immediately and set to work removing the test hardware from the "cold plate". He immediately passed out but fortunately someone was watching.

Ironically is one if not the most peaceful 🕊️ and humane deaths you can possibly get

There was a contractor fatality back in 2012 at Shell’s Ground Birch gas plant, we did not received enough information but it was related to N2 asphyxiation in a building.

HMMM They have badges for radioactive issues. They have a meter for measuring the air? WTF Issue a device to inform the workers of this issue!

groovy glasses

No monitor on this guy no

What a complete waste of lives

These people have never heard of free divers.

If science didnt discover that we breathe oxygen, people wouldve assumed that the reactor is haunted by ghosts, i can't imagine seeing someone healthy and the next minute seeing him collapse and die... tragic indeed. Hopefully never happens to anyone agian.

YET PEOPLE SAY THIS IS PAINLESS

I was there, beginning night shift, just after this accident occurred during that turnaround. The personnel in the control room, who had issued the permits for the work, didn't want to talk about it. Gee. I wonder why.

Man..... This is a SUPER BUMMER! I am almost done watching it, however, I'm just YELLING at the phone to "DON'T GO NEAR THERE, OR OVERTOP THAT"!. How tragic,.... What a waste of life. For a speedy schedule. Screw'em, it's a corporation, "IT"don't have feelings. You be safe all the time. If a corporation you work at is giving you crap for a deadline.......now you're feeling pressure to do something unsafe,.. OH HELL NO! These gentleman would still be alive if they just would have done it the right way. And not felt pressure to get it back online before morning. this is just a tragedy. All started because of a roll of duck tape. this is a sad one for me personally. 😒😔🌹🥀😥DEWEY 👉👌 it, be safe

Anyone who succumbs to death via hypoxia is truly a lucky bastard.

a bit off topic: Wasn´t Nitrogen Asphyxiation considered a means of executing the death penalty by Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississipi? Afaik it hasn´t been used yet. Shouldn´t the execution chamber also have proper warning labels?

Unfortunately too many companies and contractors care more about speed than safety.

I understand wanting to get machinery back up and running as soon as possible, especially if it is interfering in the production process.

But we as a whole society need to refocus on what is most impirtant: human life.

This reminds of BC WorkSafe videos. Nitrogen asphyxiation, when it's got ya, it's got ya!

ignorance can kill!!!

I find it hard to believe that only 10 minutes had passed when the rescue people got there set up the hoist and put on breathing supply and hoisted the workers out.

Should have have got a air pack and got mscba air packs and other emergency gear as well and as a volunteer firefighter i know when to get a hold of the plant emergency services most oil refineries have there own fire departments and you may call them up for anything and there because of federal government regulations for them and there like there own town

Oxygen level meter.
Never enter tanks or enclosed process equipment without breath apparatus, support workers that supervise and monitor, preparation etc.
Corporate profits are secondary to safety standards - always

Remember: your body indirectly detects lack of oxygen by CO2 levels (specifically change in pH of the bloodstream that’s caused by a reaction involving CO2).
Your body can ONLY alert you to a high CO2 environment.

If CO2 levels aren’t high, you can’t know you are in a low oxygen environment (without a gas detector)

I've noticed that quite a lot of enclosed space accidents tend to have 2 victims. The initial victim who fell unconscious, and another worker who isn't aware of the danger and rushes in to help.

ignorance kills

Get in the hole wagie

Imagine you took on a job and they just forgot to tell you that you'd be working in/near an area without oxygen

I fired two highly trained technicians who went into an enclosed space without PPE because they wanted to save time. Two months later at a different job one of them died inside a storage tank, again citing proper PPE would take too long to put on. Very sad.

In My profession the general rule is "If unsure...Escalate the issue for further assistance!"

And THANK YOU USCSB for NO ads in your safety videos. SO refreshing!

This was father in law and son inlaw I seen this many times for safety training in RSO's

It's kinda freaky to think about nitrogen as an asphyxiant because we do breathe it in large quantities. It's not toxic like ammonia, it's not an oxygen replacer like CO, it's just devoid of oxygen. We can breathe it just fine, but the red blood cells at our lungs can't bind with anything.

Imagine dying for a roll of duct tape, if these guys had a simple garden hose they could breathe thru it

.

These older CSB videos are better than the new ones.

ah, my gas of choice for exit bags.......

2 lives for a roll of duct tape. Frigging sad.

As an ammonia plant operator, I see laziness everywhere I look and this is one more example of it!

Well, someone has to die for what should be safe to be safer.

65 percent of the planet would take a synthetic opioid drink by the 10,000 gallon vat and say thanks, 1/3 off the world is starving to death, 5 percent need bones they can't or don't want to get replaced, 5 percent need organs they can't or don't want to get replaced, 5 percent are terminally ill 5 percent comic pain, 5-10 percent never wanted to be here anyway, and everyone else will have a peaceful way to go when they want. There's no good way to go, some are 18 and 0 and going through death and not actually dying is not fun, she attempts are violent to go through. They're needs to beat peaceful easy way for everyone when they want to go. Guy saves 1M in state aid, paid 600k in social security, doesn't have to die every day, just gets to leave before suffering. The guy with the kids gets 800 k from Uncle Sam in life insurance he never signed up for and Uncle Sam keeps the other 800k. Free euthanasia. Cut inflation by more than half, more than doubled available resources. Have a job by a company which pays all the taxes and picks up grass clippings M-S to take it to fields now with cows on it, 4x your US cattle with lawn mower clippings from every years, save 2500 on property taxes and make sure your clippings are out in your neighborhood on Tuesdays

Dig out 10 ' of river bed and cast and set two 10' pipelines to being Atlantic ocean water to every house, use steam distiller for sale free disinfected water at the kitchen sink, dump waste water into sealed pipelines. It took a turn 2 years to dig out 10' of riverbed, everyone could be back to work working in every town and we'd be at with new infrastructure. Don't put salt in your water, have more salt for more roads in the winter. Use electrolysis for energy from salt water. At the very least, feed rivers with desal water immediately to overcome drought shortages, no problem
Make a grass and corn crop that grows in ocean water hybrid with say, oceanic grass root structures, best generic corn crop growing in salt water in Texas and Arizona while you solar desalinate more oxygen and hydrogen into the air in a 24/7/365 grow season with ocean water and no weeds growing in salt water cross, full your swimming pool with ocean water and water your karma with salt water, don't put salt in your what salt water put it in the roads, use a small steam distiller makes it glass and stainless to get disinfected and salt water free water for cooking and drinking, maybe an ocean let for your pool, were have to deal with ocean water rise, how about a Dolphin?

You couldn't believe how fast dangerous atmosphere fucks you. I once dived into an HCl cloud and barely managed to close the valve while losing most of the vision in seconds!

So F'ed up to tell the contractors there's no Nitrogen hazard. This makes me more upset than a lot of the CSB vids

Its not dangerous if u actually want to die.

An accidental halon fire suppression discharge infiltrated our shop once back in the day. It was the cigarette smokers (me at the time among them) who acted as the canaries in the mine, so to speak. Quickly disoriented and stumbling towards the exit before our healthy co-workers felt a thing. Surreal is an understatement. Yes to the terrifying feeling of inhaling and not getting anything and the panic that comes quickly behind it, but moreover I was distracted by an escalating whistling sound in my head seemingly coming from everywhere, and my vision slowly shrinking to a pinpoint.

Thats horrible, dying just 5 feet from safety.