The Canadian Agricultural Safety Association says awareness of the risks can reduce the potential for accidents on the farm and possibly save your life.
A Confined Spaces Workshop set for Monday will kick off the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association’s conference “Plan Farm Safety-working the plan” which takes place November 15th to 17th in Winnipeg.
While most farmers say safety is extremely important to them, their families and their employees, only about 15 percent of farmers actually have a farm safety plan in place.
Association Director of Communications and Development Diane Wreford says the description of confined spaces is broad and includes any space where a gas might be present or your breathing can be restricted.
Normally you might think of it as a small room or you might think of it as a well or you might think of it as a manure pit.
It might be an outside manure pit that has trees on three sides.
You don’t think of that situation and also there are times when you’re using a manure skidder or something and maybe the machine even goes to close to the edge.
What do you do?
When is it safe, when is it not safe, how do you prevent deaths and injuries in confined spaces and we know we’ve heard too many of them.
We just don’t want to let ignorance, complacency or bad engineering put people in the news for a confined spaces fatality or an injury so that’s what it’s all about.
One day a situation might be perfectly safe, and the next day it can kill you.
Wreford says you hear of so many incidents where one person gets into trouble in a confined space, three people go in to help and none of them come out.
She says the goal is to prevent that first person from getting into trouble.
For more information on the Plan Farm Safety Conference or the Confined Spaces Workshop visit planfarmsafety.ca.
Source: Farmscape.Ca
