Safety Alerts

Two diving related safety documents have recently been issued by both WorkCover Queensland and by Kirby Morgan.

WorkCover Queensland issued a safety alert relating to a serious incident which involved the mismatch on a SCUBA cylinder tank valve fitting. Whilst some of you may think you have already seen this incident report, sadly this is yet another occurrence of an incident that has already been reported in our industry too many times.

Kirby Morgan issued a maintenance and repair caution relating to the unauthorised resurfacing of fibreglass shells and frames.

WorkCover QLD Safety Alert

An experienced service technician in the dive industry recently suffered life threatening facial injuries while filling a SCUBA (dive) cylinder.  The purpose of this Safety Alert is to raise awareness of the risk of injury when working with high pressure gases and equipment.

In this case, a M25 x2 metric threaded valve was incorrectly fitted into an imperial threaded ¾” cylinder.  The dive cylinder had been filled and as the fittings were about to be removed, the valve ejected at a very high speed from the cylinder still attached to the A clamp/yoke and fill whip.  The thread of the valve had stripped and the valve and a clamp flew up and struck the worker in the face, causing critical injuries.  The blast also caused extensive damage to the filling station, the associated pipework and the ceiling.

Enquiries have since revealed that across Western Australia this year, several imperial threaded dive cylinders have been identified as having the incorrect metric threaded valves fitted to them.  It appears that some of these valves have been brought in by overseas travellers or bought online from overseas suppliers or community websites, where the buyer is not aware of the thread difference.

More information about the incident can be found on the WorkCover Queensland Safety Alerts website page.

Kirby Morgan Bulletin

A maintenance and repair caution has been reissued by Kirby Morgan warning of the dangers of unauthorised resurfacing of fibreglass shells and fames.  The dangers cited include:

• critical areas such as O-ring sealing surfaces can be easily compromised by untrained individuals
• proper inspection of the part is no longer possible when surfaces are covered
• Kirby Morgan cannot guarantee the part, or work performed on the part, when done by an unauthorised party

More detail can be found on Bulletin #5 (updated March 2016).