During a permit-required confined space entry, the role of the "attendant" is to:

Explanation

Section 5157(i) gives the attendant a fixed post and a defined job: know the hazards, keep an accurate count of the authorised entrants, remain outside until relieved, communicate with the entrants, watch for prohibited conditions and for behavioural effects of exposure, order evacuation when something changes, and summon rescue. The attendant does not enter. Option (b) is the instinct that kills would-be rescuers - a large share of confined space fatalities are people who went in after a colleague - and an attendant may enter only where the employer runs a separate rescue programme with its own training, retrieval equipment and respiratory protection. Option (c) puts the attendant inside, where they can neither see the space as a whole nor reach the alarm. Option (d) takes them away from the opening, which is the one thing the standard forbids while anyone is inside.