Posted By Andrew Shaw
We are a small office fit-out and refurb co. who have a small (40m x 15m) warehouse on the back of our offices. The business employs a single warehouse manager who, while regularly visited throughout the day, may actually work alone for periods of 1/2 to 1 hour.

This gentleman is one of our First aiders and does have a first aid kit in his office.

Discussions have brought up the possibility of wearing a personal alarm to be activated in cases where he may be injured and conscious, but the possibility he may be knocked unconscious is real (if remote) and short of instigating some form of personal check on his well-being on a regularly basis I can't think of any way of ensuring that he isn't left lying on the floor until another employee comes across him by chance.

Anyone come across this situation before and implemented another solution ????

Posted By Kirsty Davies2
Welldone Casanova

Posted By WilliamTell
You would still require man hours to monitor the CCTV, therefore unless you have someone watching it whenever the person is working in the warehouse I struggle to see the added value in this measure.

Andrew I'd look at this from the angle of what could cause this person to become unconscious in the first instance - if your racking is up to scratch and the equipment used is regularly serviced/maintained, pallets etc are not overhanging, there are no chemicals/fumes which could overcome the person then what is the real risk?

How long does this person usually work alone for, what do they do etc, on the information so far I would suggest a two way radio between you and the warehouse manager where you could communicate with him lets say every 30 mins - cheap and cheery but does the job.

Over and Out

Posted By WilliamTell
Kirsty - I Think you are confused about the immobile system, also there is no need to be defensive about your pal's CCTV suggestion - only trying ot help answer the question - The immobile system works by setting of an alarm if the person wearing the sensor becomes immobile (still) for X secs/mins.

Posted By Casanova
Spot on David,

R.e. my suggestion for CCTV, not knowing the physical environment but pragmatically. You do not need to devote (wo)man hours 'monitoring'. As David has mentioned if it is anything other than low risk don't do it. I was making an assumption and giving the OP some credit that it is low risk, so buy some cheap wireless CCTV cameras dot around warehouse and put TV up in corner of (wo)manned office. An occassional glance is likely to pick up a prone body impaled on a stanly knife than waiting 1/2-1 hours before someone goes down and trips over it!

Casanova

X

Posted By Andrew Shaw
Thanks for all you input on this.

CCTV was something that sprang to mind on my way home last night but it just seemed too cumbersome a solutions for all the reasons mentioned by yourselves.

I may look in to these immobile alarm products.

The Racking inspection is set for next week but I don't envisage any major problems.

As warehouses go this one is well managed. Same manager for 10 years - nothing more than a couple of cut fingers in terms of accidents. My thoughts were that the warehouse itself poses no greater hazard to the lone worker (potentially less due to less work activity by others), its just that once in xx years situation where an incident does occur and the severity increases due to a delay in first aid & calling the emergency services.

Thanks again for your contributions

Andy

Posted By Brian Hagyard
Kirsty

Did you read the part of my posting about the warning/reset for the operative to prevent a false alarm?

I was not saying CCTV would not work but its a system that requires people to be actively watching the screens to spot an injured person. Depending on how busy the people in the office may not do this.

The immobile systems I mentioned I believe work on radio signals which pass through solid objects in a way that light does not so blind spots are less of an issue. Yes you do have to ensure full coverage.

Also once the system activates they sound an alarm. This is much easier to react to than a TV screen that some one has to watch so the operation cost is lower in term's of person hours. From the posting I assumed that there were office staff present in other parts of the building.

Neither system is perfect there are pro's and con's for both - I was simply trying to explain some of these that I have experienced.

Others have also questioned if any system at all is needed, I would fully agree with them, however I had assumed that Andrew had already made that decision and I was not questioning his risk assessment - I know nothing about the premise and was actually trying to answer the question Andrew had asked.

Brian

Posted By WilliamTell
how can he press it if he is unconcious??

Posted By Andrew Shaw
I have this morning ordered a little gadget from a company called Sure24. It is an immobilasation alarm & Call assist button rolled in to one. As standard it will emit a count down ticker if the wearer is stationary for 4 minutes, a further minute of inactivity triggers a 110dB alarm. If the one minute ticker is activated and the wearer is not out cold with a serious injury the wearer only need wriggle a little to reset the 4 minutes.

The time delay can be set to the time of your choice at manufacture.

All for about £70.

As our warehouse is only small and other staff are relatively close to hand 110dB should be enough to bring someone running.

Thanks again for your contributions.

Andy

Posted By Brian Hagyard
Kirsty.

No need to apologise (but its nice that you have done so)its all two easy to misunderstand a posting on this site - I have done it myself on a number of occasions. We will all read the postings slightly differently and have different ideas about how to apply health and safety requirements because we can for see different problems from our own experience.

Andrew
I am pleased you have found something which appears to meet your needs - good luck in the future.

Brian