Working Alone

Working alone does not create new hazards. It removes the thing that keeps ordinary hazards from becoming fatal: somebody noticing.

A twisted ankle is nothing with a crew. Alone, at the back of a site, in February, with a phone in the truck, it is something else. Cardiac events, heat illness, a fall, a chemical exposure — in every one of them the outcome turns on how long until somebody comes.

Some work is never done alone

• Permit-required confined space entry. 1910.146 requires an attendant outside for the whole entry. This is not negotiable and it is not a job for someone who "is around."
• Live electrical work where the standard requires a second person.
• Hot work in an enclosed space, which requires an outside attendant under 1926.353(b).
• Working at height on a personal fall arrest system, because suspension trauma gives somebody minutes and self-rescue often is not possible.
• Confined space entry rescue, ever. More than half the people who die in confined spaces are would-be rescuers.

If you are alone and the job turns into one of these, the job stops.

The check-in has to be real

A check-in system fails in one specific way: somebody misses a call and nobody does anything about it until the end of the day.

• Agreed times, agreed with a named person. Not "the office."
• An agreed escalation — what happens if you do not call, how long they wait, who they send, and who calls emergency services. Written down.
• The person on the other end has to know they are on it. A check-in nobody is expecting is not a check-in.
• Tell someone the plan before you go: where, what, and when you expect to be done. Change it and tell them again.

Practical

• Phone charged, on you, not in the vehicle. Signal checked before you rely on it — dead spots in basements, plant rooms, lift shafts and steel structures are exactly where you will need it.
• Know the address of where you are, well enough to say it to a dispatcher. A gate number is not an address.
• Take the harder task down a notch. Alone is the wrong time for the ladder job, the heavy lift, or the thing you have never done.
• First aid kit and, if you are outdoors, water and warm layers, in reach rather than in the truck.
• Lone worker apps and man-down devices are worth it for regular lone work — but only if somebody is watching the alerts.