Abstract: Employee #1 was in the basement of a building that housed a broken paper pulper. He was trying to use a water hose to unclog the sump pump screen, which was covered with a crusty layer of a dried paper and water mix. Once Employee #1 broke through the crusty layer, he started to smell a bad odor. He passed out while trying to climb the access ladder and a coworker had to go down and lift him out. Employee #1 had never considered the basement as a confined space. Over the years when wet paper fell below the broken paper conveyor belt, it was taken to the pulper and then pumped back to the front of the line. There, another sump pump moved the mixture to a paper wash. Apparently, the second pump had failed and overflowed, washing a mixture of stagnant paper and water into the basement.