Fall protection equipment is a specialized tool, and if you do not use it properly, you may overloading it in a fall, have it fail, and find yourself plummeting to the ground. Training is available from numerous training providers (like misafety), safety associations, and the manufacturer of equipment. Alberta has recently (2009) specified in the Occupational Health and Safety Code what has to be contained in a proper fall protection training. Ensure you ask your provider if these topics are covered in the training course you are taking. Generally the area that is missed, is the practical or “hands on training”.

As a general rule of thumb, most certification training courses that are 4 hours or less, wont meet the requirements. To incorporate the required elements, training generally has to be 6-8 hours for an “End User”. Supervisors, or rescue workers will generally require an additional 8 hours of training.

This training video shows the hazards of H2S and the training required to protect workers.

h2s video

H2S or Hydrogen Sulphide Gas is a combination of two hydrogen atoms and one sulphur atom.  It is a very simple compound, unfortunately for living creatures it is one of the most deadly gases known to man.

H2S quickly overcomes our body and our senses rendering us unconscious.  First off the gas is invisible, so we cannot see it, only smell, but our sense of smell can be deadened quickly with even a relatively low amount of the gas (100pm/0.001%).  The next step it to paralyze our central nervous system (200ppm/0.002%) we are not longer able to adequately reason.  The third step is unconsciousness, consciousness can even be immediate at 700ppm/0.07%.  Even with a quick rescue and resuscitation, the combination of the gas and our lung fluids can create sulphuric acid leaving us with burnt lungs, some of those exposed die in hospital when they drown on the fluid build up in their lungs.

Prevention of exposure to the gas is the best way to protect yourself.  Safety training with certification in H2S Alive certification is the first step.

H2S Alive Course Description

On line WHMIS (Workplace Hazardous Material Information System) training is a great way for an individual or workers inside a company to become “WHMIS Certified”. On line training has its advantages in that it does not require workers to travel or to take time off from work to attend a safety training course.

The MISAFETY on line WMHIS training course can be completed at http://www.misafety.ca/online-training the course costs $29.95+GST.  Various other health and safety courses can be taken from on on line training page.

Topics covered in the course include:

worker WHMIS responsibilities

employer WHMIS responsibilities

Material Safety Data Sheets

Supplier labels

Workplace Labels

HMIS labels

Visit the page to view all the topics covered in the course.

MISAFETY offers our weekly first aid training course each Monday and Tuesday in Devon Alberta from 8am to 4pm. Emergency First Aid Costs $100+gst/person and Standard First Aid Costs $130+gst/person. Beyond our regularly scheduled courses, we can provide training in Edmonton and the surrounding area. Training can also be provided on the evenings or weekends.

The main difference between an emergency and standard first aid course is that the emergency first aid course covers immediate life threatening issues such as airway problems, breathing problems, CPR/cardiopulmonary resuscitation, deadly bleeding and scene safety.

Standard first aid covers medical emergencies that are not immediately life threatening such as head and spine injuries, soft tissue injuries (burns, cuts), sudden medical emergencies, heat and cold related emergencies and emergency child birth. Standard first aid also has a large prevention of injuries component, and healthy lifestyles.

Most work sites require standard first aid by company policy, however some workers may only require emergency first aid.

Health and safety training may seem unexciting to attend and often attendees may wonder if they will ever really use the training. Before we consider those two aspects, lets review some interesting statistics.

1978-Alberta H2S fatalities-8.0 workers
1988-Alberta H2S fatalities-2.3 workers
1998-Alberta H2S fatalities-0.6 workers
2012-Alberta H2S fatalities-0.4 workers

Some years prior to 1978 had even higher annual fatality numbers due to hydrogen sulphide.

What we are observing here is a few different things.

1. Safety training is one of the elements responsible for bringing down the total amount of fatalities.
2. As injuries and fatalities are reduced, your company will pay less for WCB claims, insurance costs, and the hidden costs of low employee moral.
3. As the total amount of claims submitted to the WCB are reduced, these premium are returned to the employers through various programs.

We are unable to measure the cost of not having an injury or fatality, however if we compare our costs on a year to year basis we can see improvement.

January 1 2012, updated OSSA standards rolled out across the board.  Many of the providers did not continue offering OSSA courses.  We are glad to say that we are still offering both the OSSA Confined Space Entry and Monitor and the OSSA Fall Protection courses.  Contact MISAFETY at 780 987 3465 to get either of these certifications.

It is a busy winter in the Western Canadian industrial section, we have added additional training days for fall protection, H2S Alive and First Aid training.  This flexibility will help our valued customers meet their training requirements.  Call us at any time for additional training days, we can custom arrange a course around your schedule, and even your location, we can and have travelled all over western Canada, the North, eastern Canada, and even Europe to provide training!

Beyond training we can supply technical rescue standby for the more complicated rescue needs you may have with a project!

Rope Rescue training for a northern client.

MISAFETY is a service company offering a unique combination of services.  We provide safety and rescue training, onsite rescue services, and permanent fall protection anchor point installation.