In August, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) published a revised Z117.1 standard--Safety Requirements for Confined Spaces. The new "consensus standard" went into effect on November 2 and covers entry into, working in, and exiting from confined spaces at normal atmospheric pressure. The standard does not apply to all confined space entry operations--in particular, it does not apply to specific operations that are subject to other existing national consensus standards, such as underground mining, tunneling, and caisson work. Read on for a look at some of the more significant changes to the standard.

Fifty-year-old Mario Ramirez may have believed that he would soon be laid off when he kissed his wife goodbye and left for work at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center on April 16. Maybe that's why, when he arrived at the hospital, he shot pharmacy supervisor Hugo Bustamante, 46, to death with a pair of pistols, and then went searching for another pharmacy supervisor, Kelly Hales, 56, whom he shot multiple times in the parking lot before turning a gun on himself.