Hi there, I'm new to this forum, nice to meet (!) you all. I work in Confined Space, Work at Height, Rescue Training etc. I'm interested to hear from those of you who are authorising the use of vertical access systems ( planning work, signing risk assessments, CS permits etc). My observation is that where a vertical access is necessary and there is no ladder or step irons etc workers are often being lowered solely on a wire winch/ rope based system from a tripod quadpod or davit. What are you currently doing in such situations? What have you seen being used in the workplace? I'm fully aware of the Work at Height Regs and other legislation and am happy with what we as a centre train but would like to hear your experiences and rationales. Regards Andy Williams

It was a while back now but I have been involved in a lot of confined space entries. One issue is self-rescue and I settled on a two winch system, a fall arrester/emergency winch and a standard man entry winch. If the standard man entry winch failed they could be retrieved using the fall arrester/emergency winch. I remember that Mines Rescue always had a rope and pulley as a backup when we used them as a rescue team. I know other just use one winch but I have been involved when a winch failed when using a single winch. Luckily for everyone it was not an emergency situation but is was a real struggle to get them out of the manhole. At the time I was also aware of others using the fall arrester/emergency winch as a man entry winch!

It would have to be a two winch system, one a working winch line supporting the person being lowered and raised, or actually working while suspended (assuming some sort of seat system in addition to the harness), then a back up rescue winch that can be operated by the topman to retrieve the individual if the working winch failed. Ropes without any sort of ascending device or pulley system as back up are not realistically effective or practical.

The rope system described by HeO2 was what Mines Rescue used. We went for the two winch system for a number of reasons. We were not involved in 30m descents, looking after and testing two winches was easier for us and it was quicker to set up and use. The issue with a deep descent is rescue time from a toxic gas atmosphere. On the rare occasion we used the full winch length we had a second top man. Even with a winch it took an effort and time to winch them out. Entering with full BA was not practical and although they had 10 minute escape sets experience told me when a gas monitor is alarming 10 seconds can seem like 10 minutes and panic can set in.