By now, coronavirus (COVID-19) has a firm grip on communities all over the world. During these troubling times, we must work hard to maintain the highest standards of safety for those whose work carries inherent risk, not least for the fear of burdening already over-stretched health services through avoidable accidents.
Therefore, we were encouraged to see that the GWO (Global Wind Organisation) has issued new guidance for training organisations across the world in relation to handling training requirements during this difficult period.
The Global Wind Organization is a non-profit body founded by wind turbine manufacturers and owners, which strives for an injury-free work environment in the wind turbine industry, setting common international standards for safety training and emergency procedures. GWO training standards describe the requirements for training courses that are recommended by members of GWO and are the preferred standards by many leading wind organisations around the globe.
Within their latest guidance, the GWO has offered advice to members about the practicalities of training during a pandemic such as Coronavirus and made recommendations with regards to best practice.
In all practical training modules, GWO specify;
“During practical exercises in any GWO module where course participants are used as an injured person (casualty), we recommend training providers to use a dummy as the injured person.”
And in relation to working at height training, they state:
“During Working at Height initial and refresher training, all practical exercises can be performed using a rescue dummy as an injured person (casualty), including the double evacuation and ladder rescues of a conscious person.”
Many training organisations, and not just those governed by the GWO, will be looking for ways to ensure that essential safety and rescue training can continue for as long as possible. Using manikins can give teams a degree of flexibility in terms of creating challenging scenarios whilst minimizing person-to-person contact.
WORKING AT HEIGHT REQUIRES SPECIALIST MANIKINS
In response to the advice offered by the GWO, we would recommend the use of our Working at Height manikin for training within the wind industry.
This manikin has been designed specially to sit in a rescue harness, with reduced slumping, to act as a realistic casualty during training. It has added rigidity in the chest and has been constructed to provide anatomically correct weight proportions. It can be used to replicate a conscious or unconscious casualty, but we can guarantee that it is the closest thing you can get to a real person when your scenarios require an unconscious casualty – because unlike a ‘volunteer’ it is a dead weight which will not assist the rescuer! Trainees can also be encouraged to look out for signs of a compromised airway (such as a drooping head).
For more information about this manikin, click here or call 770-832-9694 for advice about your training scenario so that we can match you up with the perfect training partner.
Also remember, most Ruth Lee Ltd manikins come complete with overalls which are machine washable and we would encourage regular washing of these overalls between sessions. Not only that, but the manikin carcass can be scrubbed daily with a mild detergent (remember, soapy water helps to kill the virus). They can then be left to dry thoroughly between sessions.
