Standby rescue & hole watch — call or text, day or night
1 Rapid Response puts a trained attendant and a rigged standby rescue team on your confined space entries — gas monitored continuously, every entrant logged in and out, and a written rescue plan in place before the first person goes through the portal.
Turnarounds, shutdowns and unplanned entries. Tell us the tank and the date — we will tell you what the entry needs.
What we bring to site
Confined space work fails in predictable ways: the watch gets pulled onto another task, the meter is out of calibration, and the rescue plan is a phone call to 911. We cover the whole entry, from the air going in to the paperwork coming out.
A trained attendant posted on the portal for the length of the entry, with every entrant signed in and out by name and time and the authority to order evacuation the moment conditions change. Behind him a standby rescue team, rigged before the portal opens — non-entry retrieval where the space allows it, entry rescue where it does not, with anchors proven and the haul system built rather than assembled after something goes wrong.
Pre-entry testing and continuous monitoring through the shift, whether that is personal detection on the entrant, monitoring of the space itself, or wider coverage across a work area during an outage. Readings are taken at the entrant's working level as well as at the portal, because what hurts people settles, and every reading is logged with a timestamp rather than written up from memory at the end of the day.
Blowers and ducting set before entry and kept running through the shift — positive pressure into the space, intake placed in a fresh-air zone clear of vehicle and equipment exhaust, and air changes maintained the whole time people are inside. Keeping an atmosphere in range is always cheaper than chasing it back.
Visual inspection from the air where putting a person there is the expensive part — tank roofs and shells, stacks and elevated structures, and access and lay-down documentation before a turnaround starts. Footage and stills come back with the job, so a condition you need to show someone is on record rather than described.
A rescue plan written for the space in front of us rather than pulled off a shelf, reviewed with the crew in the JSA before work starts. The entry is logged as it happens on our own field system, so the atmospheric readings, the personnel log, the equipment and calibration record and the rescue roster are complete and in your hands when we leave site.
Rescue disciplines
A rescue plan is only useful if it matches the space. We work to three standard procedures and pick the one the space actually calls for.
Tanks · silos · shafts
Full suspension extraction where stairs and ladders are not an option, or the entrant cannot climb out. Dual-line main and belay with a progress capture device, anchors verified before entry, and the patient packaged in a vertical-configured litter with the head guided through the portal flange by hand.
Sloped pits · tank floors · embankments
Extraction on 15° to 45° slopes where the litter stays in contact with the surface. Mechanical advantage rigged in line with the extraction corridor to stop the litter swinging, a safety cam against back-slip, and tenders at the head and mid-section calling the haul.
Exchangers · boiler drums · horizontal tanks · piping
Extraction through a manway past internal baffles and trays. Edge protection on the hatch ring, a drag sheet under the patient, and a change-of-direction pulley outside the portal axis so the haul team can pull from open ground. Feet first, so the airway stays in view the whole way out.
Atmospheric limits
Every entry starts with a clean atmosphere and stays that way under continuous monitoring. These are the action limits our attendants work to — a reading outside them stops the entry.
| Gas | Acceptable range | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Oxygen | 19.5 – 23.5 % | Below is asphyxiation, above is a fire risk |
| Combustibles | ≤ 10 % LEL | One tenth of the explosive limit, not the limit itself |
| Carbon monoxide | ≤ 35 PPM | Odourless — the meter is the only warning |
| Hydrogen sulfide | ≤ 10 PPM | Deadens the sense of smell as it rises |
| Fifth channel | per sensor fitted | Specified for what is actually in your space |
Our instruments are five-channel: the four above, which every confined space entry needs, plus a fifth sensor specified for the hazard in that space — sulfur dioxide, VOCs on a PID, ammonia or chlorine — with its action limit set to the sensor fitted and your entry permit. Limits are checked at the entrant's working level as well as at the portal, and logged through the shift rather than once at the start.
Documentation
Our crews log the entry as it happens on our own field system, so the record is complete when we leave site — not reconstructed from memory a week later when someone asks for it.
Get us on site
Fastest is the phone. If it is easier to write it down, the form sends us the space, the location and the dates so we can come back with what the entry needs.
