Accidents in enclosed spaces onboard ships have long been a source of serious injuries and fatalities. Analyses of the accidents show that the underlying cause is often failure to follow established procedures – either due to insufficient knowledge of, or disregard for, the need to take safety precautions.

Let us therefore learn from Gard’s former surveyor Alf Martin Sandberg’s story told in the below video. He entered a void space onboard a barge, without checking the atmosphere inside the space first - a mistake that could easily have cost him his life. Alf Martin’s story serves as a real-life reminder that any enclosed space is potentially life threatening, that every precaution should be taken both prior to entry and while inside an enclosed space - and that even trained professionals make mistakes.