To give some background context I work at a Gas turbine engine overhaul facility, I’m a “bench” technician as they call it. Today I was tasked with doing an upgrade to a Turbine Mid Frame for an LM 2500+, task at hand was to remove rivets and replace them with a pin and nut assembly.
This task is excessively noisy during the removal process using utilizing an air chisel to remove the existing rivets, we have a special room to do such activities in which is “sound proof” there’s no windows in the room, besides the squares on the door. I’m chugging along doing my task, during this I also have my ear plugs on as part of my required PPE, I get about half way through and my phone starts buzzing in my pocket, confused by who could possibly be calling me at this hour I check to see who’s calling and it’s my coworker.
I step outside expecting there to be some kind of department meeting going on that I could’ve been potentially missing out on and to my surprise the entire shop is empty, through the windows in the main room I see a mass exodus of my fellow employees leaving the grounds. I take off my hearing protection and I’m greeted by the blaring sound of the evacuation alarm going off.
This alarm could mean anything from a toxic fume leak, a fire or some other form of life threatening situation, In a panic I grab my car keys and depart through the nearest emergency exit. Now this room I was working in has no visual indicator or an aural indicator of some form of emergency, usually I leave my phone in my tool box to avoid any damage occurring to it while working but I was lucky enough to have it in my pocket and felt it buzzing.
Saying that I was pissed would be an understatement, no one came to grab me not even my supervisor, there was absolutely no accountability taken of employees. My good friend noticed I was missing and rang me thank god, it turned out to be just a false alarm but I feel like this is some kind of an OSHA violation at the very minimum.
TLDR; Was working in a sound proof room, evacuation alarm went off no visual or aural warning indicators in said room. On top of that no one came to get me.