The Remote Job Emergency Plan SOP

Purpose

On a city job, a serious injury is a 911 call and an ambulance in under ten minutes. On a well pump at the back of a ranch, a cabin up a forest road or a pole barn two miles off pavement, it can be no signal, a dispatcher who cannot find the property, and forty minutes to the nearest emergency department. The care in the first minutes does not change with distance; everything around it does. This SOP builds the plan before the truck leaves: whether a phone works there, where the hospital is, where an ambulance should meet you, what you use when the phone does not work, and who comes looking when you go quiet.

Scope

Covers: any job the office flags as remote under step 1, whether the tech is solo or on a crew.

Does not cover: the general lone-worker check-in system and which tasks are never done alone (see related: Working Alone: Staying Safe When No One Is Watching); what to say on the 911 call (see related: Calling 911 From a Job Site So They Find You); the first-minute roles at an injury (The Injury Response SOP); vehicle breakdown with no injury. This plan adds to the working-alone card; it does not replace it.

Roles and responsibilities

Procedure

1. Flag the job remote at booking. Shop default: flag it if the work spot is more than 30 minutes' drive from the nearest emergency department, if the customer says cell service is poor, if the address is a private road, ranch, farm or forest parcel without a mapped house number at the gate, or if the work spot is more than about a quarter mile from the house. Acceptance: the flag is set or cleared on the work order with the reason ("40 min to ED, private lane"). Wrong looks like: a remote job discovered when the tech loses signal at the gate. Stop rule: if the office cannot answer any of the four questions from the customer, flag it remote by default. Hazard: none at this step; it is a phone call from a desk.

2. Ask the customer where a phone works, and check the map. Ask in their words: "When you're out at the well, does your cell phone work? Which carrier? Is there a landline in the house we can use?" Then check the carrier's coverage map for the parcel. Remember that a 911 call from a cell phone is carried by any carrier's tower in range, not only your own, so "no bars on my carrier" is not "no 911"; no tower in range is. Acceptance: the plan sheet records voice coverage at the house and at the work spot separately, and whether a landline is available. Wrong looks like: "coverage: probably fine." Stop rule: if the customer reports no service at the work spot and no landline, the job requires the step 4 backup device, or a second person. Hazard: none; desk.

3. Name the nearest emergency department and a meet point. Record the hospital name, the drive time from the work spot, and a meet point an ambulance can find without the property's address: the public road intersection or the gate, with its latitude and longitude from the map app. Acceptance: hospital and minutes recorded, and meet point recorded as both a description ("gate on County Road 14, 0.3 mi north of the bridge") and coordinates. Wrong looks like: the hospital the tech "thinks is closest," or a meet point that is just the mailing address. Stop rule: if the nearest emergency department is more than 60 minutes away, the owner decides before booking whether the job goes as a two-person crew. Hazard: none; desk.

4. Issue and test the backup device before the truck leaves. For any job where step 2 found no voice coverage at the work spot, the truck carries a two-way satellite messenger with an SOS function, charged, with an active service plan. Some current phones can also text emergency services by satellite; count that only if the tech's phone supports it and the tech has run the phone's own demo mode. Test the messenger by sending a check-in or test message to the office, never by pressing SOS, which starts a real emergency response. Acceptance: the office receives the test message before departure, and the battery reads at least 80 percent. Wrong looks like: a messenger in the glovebox that nobody has charged since spring. Stop rule: a failed test means a different messenger, a second person, or the job waits; it does not go without a working backup. Hazard: test in the yard, not while driving.

5. Set the check-in schedule and the escalation. Check-ins at arrival, every 2 hours on site, and at departure, by text where there is signal and by messenger where there is not. Escalation if a check-in is missed: at 30 minutes the office messages and calls the tech and calls the customer; at 60 minutes with no contact, the owner calls 911, asks for a welfare check, and reads the plan sheet (meet point, coordinates, work spot). Acceptance: schedule and the two escalation times written on the plan sheet, and the tech has read them back. Wrong looks like: "check in when you can." Stop rule: none of the escalation waits for the owner's judgment; the clock does it. Hazard: the tech does not text while driving to the site; the arrival check-in waits until the truck is parked.

6. On arrival, find where the phone works and set up from there. Before starting, the tech walks to the work spot and checks for a signal, sends the arrival check-in, parks the truck pointing out the way it came in, and leaves the gate open or knows the code. The messenger and phone go on the tech's body, not in the truck. Acceptance: arrival check-in received by the office within 10 minutes of the planned arrival, and the tech notes where signal was found ("signal at the barn, none at the pump"). Wrong looks like: the messenger on the dashboard 400 yards away. Stop rule: if conditions differ from the plan (a locked inner gate, a washed-out lane), the tech calls in before starting, not after. Hazard: the work itself follows the working-alone card; tasks it lists as never-alone are not done alone here either.

7. In an emergency, use the fastest channel that works, then the meet point. Call 911 if there is any signal, and give the meet point and coordinates, not just the address. If there is no signal, press SOS on the messenger and send what happened in the message if the device allows. Then do the first-minute actions you are trained to do. If someone else is present, they go to the meet point. Acceptance: responders are given the meet point, by phone or by the office relaying the plan sheet. Wrong looks like: the injured tech driving himself 40 minutes to the hospital. Stop rule: do not drive an injured person to the hospital yourself unless the dispatcher tells you to. Hazard: a person with a possible spinal injury, severe bleeding or a head injury with red flags is not moved to find signal; the uninjured person moves instead.

8. Close out and correct the plan. Departure check-in when the truck is moving off the property (sent before setting off, not while driving). Then the tech tells the office one thing the plan got wrong. Acceptance: departure check-in received, and the work order updated with the corrected coverage, gate or meet point detail for the next visit. Wrong looks like: the same wrong gate code on the next visit. Stop rule: a missed departure check-in runs the step 5 escalation the same as any other. Hazard: a rough lane at dusk; the departure check-in is sent before driving it, with the truck stopped.

The record this produces

REMOTE JOB PLAN - WO 48812          Tues 6/10, solo
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WORK SPOT : well pump, 0.5 mi behind house
COVERAGE  : voice at house YES / at pump NO
            landline in house YES (customer OK'd)
NEAREST ED: Valley General, 42 min from pump
MEET POINT: gate on County Rd 14, 0.3 mi N of bridge
            38.4412 N, 121.0187 W
BACKUP    : messenger M-2, test rcvd 7:12a, batt 90%
CHECK-INS : arrive / every 2 hr / depart
ESCALATE  : +30 min office calls tech + customer
            +60 min owner calls 911 with this sheet
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The sheet lives on the work order and prints in the truck. The dispatcher reads the check-in and escalation lines during the day; the next tech sent to that property reads the corrections from step 8.

Worked pass: a well pump at the back of a ranch

Setting. A solo pump-and-plumbing tech, a submersible well pump that quit, a ranch at the end of a 1.5-mile private lane. Planned arrival 8:15 am.

What would have happened without step 4. M-1 would have gone out on the dashboard looking ready, with no service behind it. At the pump, half a mile from the only signal and 42 minutes from the hospital, the tech's SOS would have reached nobody. The test cost 17 minutes, from 6:55 to 7:12, at the yard.

What changes the plan. A two-person crew still takes the plan sheet, because the second person needs the meet point to send responders to. A job where step 3 finds more than 60 minutes to an ED goes to the owner before it is booked.

References

• FCC rules requiring wireless carriers to transmit 911 calls from any handset, regardless of subscription.
• The satellite messenger's own operating instructions, for its test and SOS functions.
• See related: Working Alone: Staying Safe When No One Is Watching; Calling 911 From a Job Site So They Find You; The Injury Response SOP; The Ambulance That Went to the Wrong Street.