Have you ever tried to exit the Applied Materials main plant building at the west side by the security desk and found that the door will NOT open? I have had this happen several times, once was too many.
The doors in question are designated as an emergency exit route, and as such, they must be constructed and maintained in accordance to pertinent law and regulation.
I’m going to ask that you imagine yourself at work, inside the main plant, near the west entrance doors.
Now imagine that an actual real emergency occurs, perhaps a fast spreading chemical fueled fire, or a chemical release of toxic nature, or even a chemical explosion, an earthquake, or some drunk truck driver plowing a big rig into the building. The point here, is that an emergency can and does occur in unpredictable ways, through random or intentional acts. If emergencies were predictable in scope and amplitude, they would NOT be emergencies.
In any case, being nearest to the west entrance, you find yourself the first person to reach the exit doors, with 5 or ten others close behind you. You are stopped cold, by a locked door.
Now to be honest, we all know what we have to do, we have to back up, for a few moments to let the locking device reset, then we can exit.
However this IS an emegency, and the 15 people behind you do not back up, they crowd close, trying to get out, just like you did. You are now pinned solid against that locked door, and those people now realize they need to back up and let the door reset, BUT the 25 people behind them are closed in and NO ONE is backing up. The emergency is real and a few fearful people begin to panic, and then the 100 people who are jammed up at the west entrance realize they are LOCKED in and CANNOT get out and the pushing screaming, cursing and fighting begins.
Within a minute or two of reaching the door yourself, you have become trapped against a plate glass and steel obstacle with 100 panicked people pushing behind you. Your body is squeezed so hard that your ribs are near breaking, you are suffocating, limbs are being pushed and twisted and then suddenly, the pressure is too great and that plate glass gives way and shatters before you. The mass of people behind you pushes you out and down into those sharp shards of shattered glass, and bodies fall in behind and on top of you.
The glass cuts you and the trampling of your coworkers breaks bones of your own body, and you can hear and feel bones breaking of those around you that have also fallen in that massive push and rush to safety.
You die as others reach the safety of being outside the building.
That is sad, and it could have been so easily prevented by Applied Materials management and safety persons, if they had merely chosen to abide by the law concerning exit routes.
Imagine that.
Paragraphs 1910.36(d)(1), (2), and (3) of the final rule (proposed as paragraph 1910.36(g)), address locking exit route doors. Paragraph 1910.36(d)(1) specifies that employees must be able to open an exit route door from the inside at all times without keys, tools, or special knowledge. Devices that only lock from the outside at the exit discharge door, such as panic bars, are permitted. Paragraph 1910.36(d)(2) specifies that exit route doors must be free of any device or alarm that could restrict emergency use of the exit route if the device or alarm fails. Finally, paragraph 1910.36(d)(3) of the final rule states that in mental, penal or correctional facilities, an exit route door may be locked from the inside if supervisory personnel are continuously on duty and the employer has a plan to remove occupants from the facility during an emergency.
Perhaps you should discuss this situation with your lead, or supervisor, soon. I sincerely hope you have better luck with that than I did.
45 Mike.