The final months of 2002 were a tough time for Colorado ski resorts. On Nov. 23, Winter Park lost area manager Jack Mason, 53, when he suffered an epileptic seizure and fell 35 feet off Sunnyside lift. Then Keystone had two fatal employee accidents: On Nov. 25, Ben Bornstein, 28, drowned in five feet of water when he got trapped in a snowmaking pit, and on Jan. 15, restaurant worker Kenneth Zech fell to his death while downloading solo on the Summit Express lift.
If a series of accidents like this had happened in the Navy, the result would have been a “safety stand-down”—a cessation of operations while everyone attended refresher clinics in standard operating procedures. But ski resorts can’t halt the lifts in late fall. Instead, Vail Resorts called in Daryl Hillyer.
Hillyer spent nine years in the Navy, where he was a nuclear safety officer on submarines and surface vessels. Then, for 15 years, he worked at the Department of Energy in Grand Junction as a training manager for industrial waste treatment and radiation safety issues.
Today he’s a private safety and systems consultant based in Grand Junction. Major clients include the Department of Energy, several municipalities, a waste management system in West Texas, and most of the large Colorado ski resorts. He also gives lectures at snow industry conferences on lift, snowmaking and vehicle safety.
“Daryl was very helpful,” said Craig George, risk management director for Vail Resorts. “He was able to look at our operations with a cool and objective eye.”
We interviewed Hillyer to learn more about confined-space safety, as well as other issues related to safety in the workplace. Safety regulations change all the time, and experts such as Hillyer can help resorts keep up to date.
SAM: When and why does a ski area need a consultant with your expertise?
DH: A company or agency calls me when they need outside assistance. That may be because they can’t afford a full-time guy or because they need an objective evaluation. I can’t talk about specific cases, but I will say that in 2003, one department called me in to talk about confined spaces—I do a lot of confined space work with three water departments and the Clifton [Colo.] Fire Department. That led to covering the entire operation, inspecting every building and space at the resort for hazard assessment and employee-employer compliance with state and federal standards.
SAM: What do you mean by confined space work?
DH: I help the risk management folks bring their confined space program up to compliance with the OSHA standard—that’s 29 CFR 1910.146. CFR stands for Code of Federal Regulations. It’s a long, intricate standard and can be difficult for the layman to read. I interviewed the managers and discussed their expectations. We identified and controlled their confined spaces.
SAM: What sort of confined spaces does a ski area have?
DH: Valve boxes, snowmaking pits, water storage tanks, crawl spaces and attic spaces. Sewers, grease pits, counterweight wells, the gallery containing Magic Carpet machinery. OSHA defines a confined space as a space with limited access and exit, not designed for continuous occupation. It’s important to understand that the regulations apply to employer-employee situations. They do not apply to paying guests.
SAM: After you’ve identified these spaces, what happens?
DH: Then we identify the areas that need to be permitted. Any confined space with a potentially hazardous atmosphere, and potential for entrapment, or potential for engulfment (as in water, sand or snow), or any other potential serious health hazard, has to conform to the standard, and that requires training, monitoring, a rescue procedure and a permit procedure.
If we can find a way to either remove the hazard or keep the employee out, it doesn’t have to be permitted.
SAM: What is the permit? A document from OSHA or some local agency?
DH: It’s a document developed by the company describing the confined space, its hazards, and the procedures to be followed. Each time an employee enters the space, the employee and the supervisor must sign the permit.
SAM: What else has to happen when an employee goes into the space?
DH: While the employee is working in the space, he has to be monitored from outside, and one form of rescue capability has to be in place. There are basically two forms of rescue capability. The first is entry rescue, which requires another level of training and equipment, and the rescue crew must be standing by. The second is non-entry, which means some sort of belay system. If the worker would need to be lifted five feet or more, you need a mechanical lifting device, usually a tripod with a crank winch. There has to be a training plan covering these procedures.
SAM: Would the ski patrol be the stand-by rescue squad?
DH: I’ve done no work with the ski patrols at all. They have their own procedures and training.
SAM: Wouldn’t it make sense to work with the patrol? Most of them are EMTs, and they have Forest Service requirements for backcountry rescue, which means they’re trained to move a litter up and down cliffs.
DH: It might make sense in some situations, but of course you need a stand-by squad for summer work, too.
SAM: What about other hazards?
DH: You mean electrical safety, high pressure systems, hazardous and flammable chemical storage. These are lock-out and tag-out situations. And there’s fall protection.
SAM: What about fall protection? Ski areas send crews up lift towers and onto roofs all the time.
DH: Falling, especially in construction, is the number two source of employee accidents, after driving. A fall protection system is required if the employee could fall more than either four feet or six feet. There are many fall protection systems, depending on the roof design. It can be as simple as a warning line or a guard rail. Sometimes a safety net is required.
SAM: Do employers resist the cost of meeting the regulations?
DH: Conforming to the OSHA regulations actually saves money. It’s hard to see and calculate the lives and dollars saved with accidents that don’t happen. It’s always possible to be compliant and safe. There’s always a way to meet the intent and letter of the standard and be productive.
What You Can Do
Vail’s Craig George notes that not all productive safety programs are government-driven. The most effective ideas are often generated internally, right in the workplace.
For instance, Vail’s food service department originated the concept of skid-resistant footwear for kitchen workers, who spend the whole shift tip-toeing across greasy tiles. “We worked with Skechers, the shoe company, and found a black sole that works well,” George said. “We require employees to use the shoe, and have a payroll deduction plan to help them pay for it. We found a retailer in Boulder who loaded up a kind of shoe-store on wheels to bring their inventory in at the beginning of the season.”
George has found an invaluable free source of training materials at the Oregon OSHA website (www.orosha.org). For instance, http://www.orosha.org/educate/peso.html contains training manuals in both English and Spanish on such topics as fall protection, ladder and scaffold safety, material handling, hazard identification and many more. These manuals are provided for free.
OSHA Resources
Here’s the relevant OSHA confined space standard, 29 CFR 1910.146:
http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=STANDARDS&p_id=9797
For a complete library of OSHA workplace guidelines, go to: http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owasrch.search_form?p_doc_type=STANDARDS&p_toc_level=0&p_keyvalue=
The OSHA website also contains links to state resources: http://www.osha.gov/fso/osp/index.html
