Falls continue to be one of the most common accidents in the workplace, according to NIOSH; however, fall protection equipment is only half the answer to keeping workers safe at height. The other half involves rescuing workers to get them safely to the ground in a timely fashion to avoid additional injuries while suspended.
2 comments:
This brings up a really great point that we haven't really touched upon in 30 Hour OSHA. While we have talked about fall protection plans, we talked only briefly about rescue plans. In class, we discussed examples where workers going down into a well or underground area should have a lifeline in case they somehow lose consciousness or have some life-threatening thing happen to them. However, we didn't really discuss this sort of practice in regards to fall protection. It is definitely something to consider, as accidents such as getting stung by a bee and going into a serious allergic reaction may be more likely than one may think.
Until I read this article, the idea of having a rescue plan never really occurred to me. Having fall protection is an obvious must, but I never really considered what to do if that fall protection is tested. You don't have to fall very far for injury to occur even with fall protection. What do you do if a worker falls, is caught by their harness but is knocked unconscious, or worse by the fall? Fall protection is only half of the solution. Being able to get that person safely to the ground and to medical help is the other, equally critical half.
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