It’s a Saturday night December 21st and the plant is running on a skeleton crew. Operations decides to get a head start on annual preventative maintenance by knocking out several permit required confined space entries before the majority of the work is to be done when the regular shifts return after the New Year.

Randy has just finished the third of five vessels that are identical in configuration. He and his authorized attendant and good friend Hector have been working together for over 15 years, and they both know the drill. They have changed out the stainless steel bolt sets on the agitator blades of these vessels every year at about this same time.