It doesn’t matter the time of day, if it’s a weekend, or a holiday, emergency situations can arise at any moment. Even if your team is well prepared for a disaster, you might not always have every essential tool that you need – or you may need extra equipment depending on the scale of the situation.
This happened to one customer at Industrial Scientific, who needed extra equipment after an explosion on New Year’s Eve. With the help of our rental program, they were able to get the gas detectors they needed to help get them out of a tough spot in less than 12 hours.
The Moment
On New Year’s Eve, Holly Mazzia, a district sales manager at Industrial Scientific, was celebrating the holiday with family when a customer, whom she had been working with over the past several months, reached out with an emergency.
The customer quickly explained that there was an explosion at one of their handling facilities, their emergency response team needed gas detectors, and they needed them quickly.
“How quickly?” Mazzia asked.
“As soon as possible,” the customer replied.
The Response
When she read “as soon as possible,” Mazzia jumped into action. She called several of her team members for recommendations before calling Industrial Scientific’s after-hours support line. Despite the holiday, the support team returned her call within 15 minutes to discuss everything the customer needed to handle the emergency at hand, which included renting multiple Radius® BZ1 Area Monitors.
Once everything was addressed with our internal teams and local distributor, the Industrial Scientific team got the customer back on the line, scoped out the rest of the project, and filled in any missing details to complete the last-minute rental order.
Close to midnight, the team went into the Pittsburgh facility to calibrate equipment and get it ready based on the customer’s unique specifications. During this time, one of the customer’s team members drove four hours to Pittsburgh to pick up the Radius BZ1 Area Monitors and additional gas detection equipment.
After a seamless handoff less than 12 hours after the initial phone call, Mazzia remained in constant communication with her customer to ensure everything continued to run seamlessly.
“Hazmat response has always been a unique vertical,” says Mazzia. “There’s something internally motivating knowing that you’re going to be part of the solution. When we talk about ‘the moment,’ in hazmat response, it’s a little nerve wrecking because the stakes are so high. It’s a big deal that we’re able to execute quickly on a short timeline, because when you’re in a situation like that, every hour counts.”
About 24 hours after the first phone call, Mazzia received another text from the customer that read: “We need more equipment, this is not a joke.”
The Industrial Scientific team jumped back into action and repeated the same process from the night before, ensuring the customer received their gas detector rentals in a timely fashion and helping to keep their workforce safe following an on-site explosion.
Renting Gas Detectors with Industrial Scientific
While this customer unfortunately didn’t have all the exact gas detectors needed on-site when the explosion happened, they were able to quickly rent the necessary units and then additional equipment to fill in any gaps the following day – potentially helping to save hundreds of lives.
In other customer emergencies, for example, Industrial Scientific has seen clients use our rental capabilities fill in any potential gaps in their gas detection lineup or to avoid transporting their equipment across the country from one facility to another.
Additionally, because this customer was relatively close to our facility in Pittsburgh (additional facilities located in Houston, Texas and Edmonton, Canada), they were able to pick up their equipment. However, in most cases Industrial Scientific can do same-day shipping on rental orders – so we can get the life-saving tools you need to you as fast as possible.
When you’re short on tools, renting is the most efficient way to quickly obtain gas detection equipment in an explosion or other emergency. Renting also goes beyond emergencies, so whether your focus is based on turnarounds, outages, special projects, natural disasters, or repair replacements, you can depend on our rentals for your short-term gas detection needs.
For additional information on our rental program, or to get a rental quote today, visit our website.
