Innovation March-April 2023

F E A T U R E

TSBC’s reports are made public in the hope that they will help prevent similar tragedies.

“We work with a lot of smart people in the industries that we regulate. When they have the evidence for themselves, and they can see it for themselves, they tend to digest it better, and can understand it. That helps us get to a place of prevention much more effectively,” he said. “Our goal is to get other people to reflect upon these incidents and recognize that they do those things sometimes, too. That’s what prevention is. If we can stop pointing our fingers and start understanding the relationships to how we work, then we can start to have an impact.” AMMONIA AMOUNT IN TANK UNDERESTIMATED The day before the fatal accident, there were clues that things weren’t safe. While working on disassembling one of the two systems, a rigger cutting a pipe was gassed in the face with ammonia. “When I hit it, I got a face full of gas that pretty much... took my breath away and it hurt my eyes... I physically couldn’t breathe and my eyes hurt,” the rigger was quoted in the TSBC report.

The distinct frost line shows the liquid ammonia levels in the system during purging by Technical Safety BC after the incident. P hoto : T echnical S afety BC

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