A jury in Merced County, California, has acquitted dairy farmer Patrick J. Faria in the 2001 deaths of two farm workers who succumbed after entering a manure pit at a dairy farm in Gustine without proper training or safety equipment. After one worker climbed down, he called up that the air quality was poor at the bottom and he was coming up. But he fell face first into the excrement. When his co-worker entered to rescue him, he too became asphyxiated and passed out.
Prosecutors charged that Faria, reportedly a volunteer firefighter, knew the dangers of the shaft but had not communicated the risks to the workers and had not conducted training required by Cal/OSHA. The prosecution pointed out during the trial that it would have cost Faria about $600 to hire a crew to clean the pump. The defense countered that the state did not do enough to regulate manure pit hazards.
Are your employees trained on the dangers of confined spaces? Whether you need to train new workers or provide refresher training to experienced workers, the
Interactive CD Course: Confined Spaces course (see below) delivers interactive training required by OSHA on confined spaces. This self-paced course teaches workers to recognize and understand the hazards and control methods for working safely in and around confined spaces.
Safety.BLR.com has sample safety inspection forms, safety meetings, and other OSHA compliance and training tools on every important safety topic. Plus practical compliance analysis of all state and federal OSHA regulations.
Sign up for a free 14 day trial and see for yourself how Safety.BLR.com can help.
The Safety Library has more helpful OSHA safety inspection forms like these:
OSHA Form 300A
Safety inspection forms
Confined spaces inspection form