Firefighters rescued a pit bull puppy Sunday night from a sink hole from a collapsed septic tank in Calimesa using confined space rescue techmiques, Cal Fire officials said.

The trapped dog was reported at 8:18 p.m. Sunday in the 200 block of Myrtlewood Drive, south of Avenue L in Calimesa, Melody Hendrickson of Cal Fire-Riverside County said in a statement.  Four engine crews with 18 firefighters responded, Hendrickson said.

The puppy was trapped 15 to 20 feet down in a confined space, and the technical rescue was declared complete at 10:12 p.m., Hendrickson said. No injuries were reported.  “The dog was an 8-12 month old black Pit Bull, weighing approximately 25-30 lbs,” Cal Fire officials said in an update Monday. “Once the dog was rescued, it was transported to a night holding kennel at the Beaumont Police Department. The dog was unharmed.”

Entered Niagara River five metres from brink of falls

A ground and aerial search by members of several agencies has failed to turn up any sign of a woman presumed to have gone over the Horseshoe falls.
At just after 4 p.m. Sunday, a woman had been seen jumping into the Niagara River about five metres from the brink of the falls. Several emergency responders, including Niagara Parks Police, the Niagara Regional Police, The Niagara Falls Fire Department and the United States Coast Guard, which provided both air and marine support.  Additionally, Niagara Helicopters and members of the NPC High Angle Rescue Team were also called in.  Investigation of the incident has been turned over to the NRP’s No. 2 District criminal investigations branch. Anyone with information is asked to call the NRP at 905-688-4111, ext. 2200.

The vehicle had driven off Highway 24 at mile marker 151. Three people were in the pickup, which was traveling towards Leadville. One passenger managed to get out of the vehicle, climb up to the road and flag down a passing vehicle to call for help. The passenger then returned down the mountain to the vehicle.

Emergency crews were notified of the crash at about 10:22 p.m.

Firefighters were able to get to the pickup within five minutes of their arrival. They found a heavily damaged full-size Dodge 2500 pickup that had rolled to a stop. The tree line and rock outcroppings prevented the vehicle from traveling all the way down to the base of the Gilman Gorge.

An Eagle River Fire Protection District rescue vehicle, which is outfitted with a 600-foot rope and additional specialty equipment for these types of incidents, soon arrived at the scene.

Rope rescue operations were prolonged and dangerous due to the distance of the vehicle from the road and lack of lighting. The only light sources were from flashlights and the moon. All equipment used at the accident had to be brought down by ropes.

The driver was trapped in the pickup and a passenger was ejected during the rollover. Both injured parties had to be hauled up the mountain one at a time in a “stokes basket,” a specially designed piece of equipment that is used to carry an immobilized person during a rope rescue. The third person from the accident scene was able to use a harness and a rope rescue system to make it back up the mountain.

The three people from the truck were taken to Vail Valley Medical Center by ambulance.

While road conditions may have contributed to the accident, the cause is still under investigation.

The Eagle River Fire Protection District, Eagle County Ambulance District, Eagle County Sheriff Office, Colorado State Patrol and Colorado Department of Transportation responded to the incident.

Code Red Safety offers free Confned Space Rescue, High Angle Rescue, and Rope Rescue classes to veterans.  Contact mstewart@coderedsafety.com for more information on class schedules.

Many employers are mistakenly relying upon public fire departments to rescue workers from confined spaces, such as water and sewer pipes, manholes and tunnels, according to an analysis by University of California, Berkeley, health researchers of hundreds of deaths in the United States over 13 years. 

Construction workers are at special risk of dying in a confined space, such as an unshored trench (above). They constituted 20 percent of the 530 fatalities evaluated in a new UC Berkeley study, but they represent just 5 percent of the U.S. workforce. There is no federal OSHA standard for confined space safety in the construction industry. (Photo copyright © Earl Dotter)Since fire crews need time to evaluate the hazards at a specific site, companies should instead have rescue personnel stationed at the entrance of potentially dangerous confined spaces who can pull workers out more quickly in an emergency, the study concludes.  The paper, published in the latest issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, arrives at the same time California’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Cal-OSHA) is launching a statewide special emphasis program to prevent workplace deaths in confined spaces.

 “Our findings show that employers have to take greater responsibility for putting together an effective, timely, on-site rescue program if they are sending workers into these kinds of spaces,” said study lead author Michael Wilson, director of the Labor Occupational Health Program at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health.”When something does go wrong, help from fire department crews can be a long ways off.”

 Cal-OSHA defines a confined space as a work area that:

•  is large enough for a person to enter
• has limited entry and exit points
• is not meant for continuous employee occupancy
• has the potential to be filled with toxic or oxygen-deficient air and/or
• has certain physical safety hazards

For this study, the researchers analyzed 530 U.S. worker deaths from 1992-2005 that were due to toxic or oxygen-deficient atmospheres in confined spaces. They also obtained from urban fire departments in California data on fire crew arrival times and estimates of the length of time it would take to complete rescue of a victim from a confined space.

 They found that the time needed for confined-space rescue operations – which includes extrication and initiation of advanced life support – ranged from 48 to 173 minutes. Even though the arrival time of the first engines averaged 5-7 minutes, firefighters need time to evaluate and control the hazard before they enter the confined space, the study said.

 “A confined space emergency is a low-frequency, high-risk event for fire departments, and firefighters have to be careful not to become victims themselves,” said Wilson, who worked as a firefighter and paramedic for 13 years before joining UC Berkeley. He is also a member of Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 4 of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), housed at the Oakland Fire Department.

  Workers don air-supplied respirators before entering a drained petroleum holding tank to inspect welds after a series of small earthquakes. Entering a toxic, oxygen-deficient atmosphere requires specialized training, equipment and rescue procedures. (Photo copyright © Earl Dotter)

The study found that more than half of the 21 large, Silicon Valley-based companies that responded to a survey depended on calling 911 to rescue their employees trapped in confined spaces. Wilson conducted the survey in collaboration with an industry-based health and safety consulting firm and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.

Working in confined spaces represents a small, but ongoing, occupational hazard. In just the past year, there were seven confined-space fatalities in California, including two young employees – a 22-year-old man and the 16-year-old brother he was trying to rescue – who died in October after being overcome by hydrogen sulfide fumes in a drainage tunnel at a compost center in Lamont.

“Nearly every one of the 530 U.S. fatalities we evaluated was thoroughly preventable,” said Wilson, who pointed out that the analysis was funded as part of a settlement between a Los Angeles-based company and the L.A. District Attorney’s office over the deaths of two workers overcome by argon gas in a heat treatment tank. “The Cal-OSHA special program on confined spaces is a great first step. It will take continuing enforcement in conjunction with outreach, training, and education of employers, workers and unions to prevent future fatalities.”

Co-authors of the paper are Heather Madison, an industrial hygienist  at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Stephen Healy, a battalion chief at the Moraga-Orinda Fire District

The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary said a young man in his late teens appeared to have slipped from an embankment on Signal Hill around 11:45 a.m.

For several hours, police, the high-angle rescue team of the St. John’s Regional Fire Department, a fast-water rescue craft and a Universal helicopter searched the area for the missing man.

The RNC reported late in the afternoon that the young man did not survive the fall.

The Canadian Coast Guard retrieved the teen’s body around 5 p.m.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2011/11/06/signal-death-06nov11.html

Montgomery County Fire and Rescue is on the scene of 6001 Montrose Road, where three men were hanging from harnesses while emergency crews attempted the “high angle rescue,” officials said.

The accident happened at around 9:40 a.m., when the scaffolding broke away from the workers.

The motor that powered the scaffold malfunctioned and the men were stuck between the eighth and ninth floors, officials said.

Emergency crews are using aerial ladders to get to the men.

http://wusa9.com/news/article/172926/158/3-Workers-Hung-After-Scaffolding-Accident-In-Rockville

The men were unconscious when they were found inside a tank by a co-worker at Vista Paint, Fullerton police Sgt. Andrew Goodrich told the Orange County Register (http://bit.ly/uETjAq). The co-worker, with the help of other employees, pulled the men out, Goodrich said.

One man was pronounced dead at a hospital. He was identified late Tuesday by the county coroner’s office as Roberto Magdariago, 62. A second man, who police said is 45, remained hospitalized in critical condition.

Authorities believe that the chemical that caused the fumes is a paint stripper. The fumes were confined to the area where the men were working, Julie Kunze, a division chief with the Fullerton Fire Department told the Register.

No other workers reported symptoms, Kunze said.

California Division of Occupational Safety and Health spokeswoman Erika Monterroza said the men are believed to have been working inside the tank when they were overcome by the fumes.

“It’s a real tragedy when there are situations like this where it is a confined space,” Monterroza said.

A search of Vista Paints safety records over the past five years turned up several citations, Monterroza told the Register.

In 2008, Vista Paint employees were cited after an accident in Palm Desert, Monterroza said, although the details of the incident weren’t immediately available. The company also received four regulatory citations, one for an incomplete illness or injury plan, two for the operations of an industrial truck and one that was overturned, Monterroza said.

CalOSHA is investigating the accident.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/15/4057992/1-dead-1-critical-after-being.html#ixzz1eM1SRauz

The incident ”was a protracted incident due to the confined space and difficult access” which only allowed a limited number of staff and ambulance paramedics to deal with the injured man.

His injuries required him to be lowered using a line and a basket stretcher from the jib of the crane involving “specialist skills and equipment and was complex in nature”

The rescue took approximately 2 hours to complete and the injured man was then taken to hospital by ambulance.

http://www.ppconstructionsafety.com/newsdesk/2011/11/02/second-tower-crane-rescue-in-two-week-period/

She said the deaths should never have happened.

“This kind of confined-space death is totally preventable,” said Widess.

Supervisors had been pressing Cal/OSHA for answers in its investigation that happened Oct.12. The state agency said 16-year-old Armando Ramirez was cleaning out a drainage tunnel. He was overcome with fumes from hydrogen sulfide. His 22-year-old brother Eladio tried to rescue him, but he too was overcome by the fumes and died.

Supervisors asked Widess if any more workers at the site faced immediate dangers. Widess said there were none, but Cal/OSHA did close access to the drainage tunnel where the Ramirez brothers were killed.

Supervisor Zack Scrivener said the county has information that the company has compiled a number of violations but would not say what those violations were. Scrivener called on the board to hold a public hearing on whether to suspend or revoke the company’s operating permit.

http://www.bakersfieldnow.com/news/local/132598308.html