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Fall Protection |
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When you think of fall protection, the first thing that comes to
mind is a body harness with lanyards that attach to an anchor point. If the worker falls from a height, this mechanism will allow him to fall only so far, and he will be safe. Sounds pretty cut and dried. But the reality is far more complicated than that. Moreover, there are many ways a worker can fall to his death, there are also ways that the conscientious manager can fall into a trap of buying equipment that he thinks meets the highest standards, but actually does not. This disturbing claim is made by a man who has spent his career in the fall prevention industry, Clint Honeycutt, Sr., a consultant and president of Safety Connection, Inc., Baton Rouge, LA. The main issue, he says, is compatibility. The different components of the lanyard do not really fit together, he says. Therefore, the standards, which may appear to be met in theory are not necessarily met in practice. Honeycutt explains, “Snap hooks are supposed to meet a new standard soon to be issued by ANSI, which means they must be able to withstand 3,600 pounds of pressure on the gate in all directions.” But Honeycutt says that the gate, also called the keeper, opens and closes the snap hook when it connects to the D-ring. The ANSI standard, which came out in 1992, says, in effect, that the gate should not be susceptible to pressure, which would force it open. The obvious reason is that if the hooks are unhooked, the worker’s support is gone and he falls to the ground. The key mechanism that is supposed to keep this from happening is the “double action” self-locking snap hook. This is supposed to reduce, but not eliminate, the possibility of “rollout”— which means that when the snap hook and Dring are hooked together, if they are rolled over, pressure can apply to the gate and the mechanism will become undone. “If you make the D-ring smaller and the snap hook gate longer, this allows for an even greater possibility of rollout,” says Honeycutt. “You should not be able to apply pressure to open the gate from any angle. But this is what happens.” “It doesn’t matter if the mechanism can withstand 3,600 pounds of pressure in a test situation. If you accidentally bump something, you open the first lock leaving only a few springs holding the hook gate in place. A manufacturer told me, ‘Oh, the chances of that happening are one in a hundred.’ I wouldn’t want to risk my life on those odds.” There is a possibility of failure with most connections today, said Honeycutt. The proper methods to keeping a safe work environment as safe as reasonably possible lies in adequate training based on all the facts we are currently aware of. When the workers are aware of the dangers present and know what can happen in a given situation, their capacity to make a safe and informed decision is much greater. “The reality is that the fall protection industry is still in its infancy,” says Randall Wingfield, chairman of the ANSI Z-359 fall protection committee, and president of Gravitec Systems, Inc. of Bainbridge Island, WA. “In a relatively short time we’ve gone from a belt around the waist and a lanyard to a whole new array of equipment, full body harnesses, self-retracting lifelines, horizontal lifelines and much more. ANSI is working very rapidly to develop the appropriate standards.” Honeycutt, who often testifies as an expert witness for trials on worker fatalities from falls, says that the sad thing is that the fall protection devices can become unhooked but not show any obvious damage, appearing as if it was never connected by the worker. Remember, it is the user’s responsibility to inspect the fall protection equipment before each use, as well as to be part of a planned maintenance program on the equipment. “It seems to me if I was a manufacturer of fall protection equipment, I would be proud enough of my products to put on a decent label that is legible and permanently attached to my products and includes a unique tracking number such as a serial number, lot number, date of manufacturer and warning labels. This is the biggest reason I discard equipment during my on-site audits. Most manufacturers do not put serial numbers, or use very poor quality tags that are written with ink pens and wear out as they get wet. This is all very important information if there is ever a legal matter involved. It would be a disadvantage to you and the company you work for.” Wingfield reports that within the next few months, four new standards will appear and another dozen are under development. Also planned is a requirement for third party certification, which would address the problem of weak and inferior imports. He acknowledges that the arrival of so much new equipment has led to concerns with limitations and hardware compatibility, but he also says that the main issue has to do with worker training, not so much the hooks coming apart because of incompatibility, but rather the worker “putting the hook in the wrong attachment.” John Whitty, PE, division director, ITAC Fall Protection Services, Chester, VA, agrees with Honeycutt’s portrayal of the compatibility issue. He describes his company as a “total turnkey integrator of fall protection systems,” which includes everything from site assessment surveys to audits to specification of equipment to design and installation of system to user training and annual certification inspections. Whitty also adds that ‘‘it’s well known that over half of the workers who die from falls in the workplace die with their harnesses on,” and then provides additional reasons. One is “one size does not fit all.” Different fall protection outfits need to be sized to each individual as well as not hinder the particular job he may be doing. Another factor is lack of proper training. A too often occurrence, Whitty says, is a worker, instead of fastening the lanyard to an anchor, wraps it around a rail and back into itself. This means using a standard 6-foot, shock-absorbing lanyard in a 12-foot freefall scenario, which can reduce the strength by 50 to 75 percent. Whitty says that “the most important safety precaution is to eliminate the hazard in the first place. Unfortunately, most engineers and architects designing retrofit projects haven’t had the safety training in terms of fall protection. A lot of dangers can be eliminated at the drawing board or CAD station.” These include locating HVAC systems away from unprotected edges, preplanning good anchorage points for window washers, and constructing buildings with good guard rails within and walls on the outside. Much of the administrative controls, such as yellow warning lines, controlled access zones, and safety monitors are not that effective, Whitty maintains. “They are used too liberally, but don’t really make the area safe.”
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