SCBA Regulator check

[Dobo]

I don't know how many oil workers we have on here but I was wondering if anyone had any tricks to confirming your regulator pressure on the old model MSA Self Contained Breathing Apparatus. We use them and the regulator is on the waist so with the mask on you cannot see it. I know if you are with someone one you can check each others but if you are suiting up alone I cannot figure out how to check that gauge. The newer models are nicer because they have the gauge on the shoulder easy to see and read, but these old models are a bit of a pain in this respect. I know it is a minor thing but I am not about to go dashing into a H2S environment unless I know I am protected otherwise I am just another victim to be rescued, or heaven forbid "retrieved" .

 

[KEVD18]

check it when you put it on, wait for the bell, exit the area. althoug it hardly matters. im a fat man and i can see the guage on my belt, at least i could when i was using an msa. now its all scott.....

why would you ever even consider entering a hazmat environment alone? thats just plain stupid. and if its company policy to have you do so, run dont walk run away from that company.

 

[Dobo]

it's H2S, you have 4 minutes from "knockdown" to death, we are trained to do it in pair and also if we have to alone, time is too tight to wait for back up, that is while equipment must be mastered so yo do not become a victim yourself. H2S Alive is an Enform certification recognised internationally and they train you to go in alone if you have to.

 

[Dobo]

My favourite is the new MSA's except they cheaped out and put plastic buckles on it which in the extreme cold up here snap like a twip, So Scott would be my first pick but I am stuck with an old MSA

 

[mycrofft]

Do you mean remaining cylinder pressure?

If so, check it at the start of your shift, make sure it's kept full, etc. Looking at remaining pressure in a hostile atmosphere is like looking at the surface when you are under water trying to get out. No amount of looking will help it get better, egress pronto.

 

[skivail]

Best you can do asuming you are not in confined space is slip a shoulder out of the pack and take a look.

 

[BossyCow]

You should never, ever enter a hazmat scene without first being safety-ed by a co-worker. If your agency has you responding without that.. run do not walk to the nearest unemployment office.

 

[rchristi]

If so, check it at the start of your shift, make sure it's kept full, etc. Looking at remaining pressure in a hostile atmosphere is like looking at the surface when you are under water trying to get out. No amount of looking will help it get better, egress pronto.

I agree with Mycroft. At high concentrations of H2S you get one chance to get it right. My own procedure in your situation would be to check my SCBA before every shift or daily in the following manner.
1. Check tank gauge air pressure
2. With regulator valve closed, open tank valve.
3. Listen for low air bell and verify regulator air gauge matches tank pressure.
4.Close Tank valve
5.Using regulator Bypass, slowly bleed off air noting regulator gauge response and the pressure at which the low air bell rings. bleed off all pressure.
6.Reclose the regulator Bypass
7.Restow SCBA
I really hope you never need to make a for real H2S rescue. You probably heard these prechecks when you got H2S certified, but I thought that they bore repeating.
Good luck and be safe

 

[mycrofft]

I didn't check my own once in fire school.

To this day I do not know if the instructor had a bad one on the rack as a lesson, but I was last getting to them and he had me take the last one left and sent me into the "tunnels", a fifty foot long three by three foot underfloor conduit roofed with steel plates. Half way...deep breath and the faceplate sucks to my nosetip. I responded correctly (held breath, unscrewed hose from regulator and stuck it into my coat and scuttled on outta there) but I never forgot about it.
Make sure you bag your mask separately. A bit of debris can fall in and prevent the exhaust flappers from closing fully during your inhalations. I once found a dead moth there.

 

[BossyCow]

I'm still wondering about when you are going to have to rely on yourself alone at a hazmat incident? If an SCBA is needed, so is at least one other responder. Everytime!

 

[mycrofft]

He is working from the POV of mine working/escape/reaction

One person conscious and able to act quickly can make a huge difference by activating emergency equipment or spreading an alarm, and the process is "sense impending disaster-don SCBA-press on", no time for forming up teams or going topside then going back down. Hopefully you are not alone, but a commercial mine is a workplace, not a wilderness, so one isn't going around belayed onto other workers during the workday.
I'd bet a quarter they have a policy to "buddy-check" before they go below each day, though. I know I was embarassed a couple times by newbie glitches my cohorts fond in my chem gear before I got it down pat...and then if/when we donned it, we darn well did an inormal hurried buddy check each time, and later on as we were working.

 

[Jon]

H2S = Hydrogen Sulfide?

and you are doing this as part of disaster mitigation at work, not as an EMT/FF, right?

 

[rjz]

check it when you put it on, wait for the bell, exit the area. QUOTE]

Please be careful with this mindset. You should only go in as far as 3/4 to half way on your bottle. The remaining last 1/4 is for your back-up protection. It seems to be the "new way." All about air manegement and knowing how much you and your entire crew have left. I learned the old way, when your bell goes off get out. But now it can go all the way up to written disipline if you exit someplace with your bell going off. please be careful and remember that the air on your back is all that you have between you and sudden death. And that sudden death match is one I don't want to partisipate in.