Occupational Health & Safety: When it comes to safety, a lot of attention is dedicated to the biggest or loudest hazards. But if you poll folks in the construction industry on the source of most injuries, you'll find that they're rarely caused by the scariest tasks. Most often, they're the result of all of the little hazards that workers navigate on a daily basis.
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This article has such resonance in my fear of heights when working it’s not even funny. When most people are gung-ho about climbing into a genie or scaling some scaffolding, I prefer to take a more cautious approach. While I have never requested a harness or anything, being a rock climber, I am always very aware when going on any piece or ladder. I boulder, which is essentially shorter climbs with no ropes for support. The walls I climb are usually 15 or so feet in height. But I have pads and spring boards to fall onto. I also have fall training, which is how I managed to not sprain or break my ankle even when falling in the completely wrong direction. The piece of information that stuck with me the most from this article was “stats that say that 50 percent of workplace fatalities due to falls occur from a height of 25 feet or less, and a common refrain from safety managers is how quickly workers become used to working at a height of 10 or 20 feet and forget how risky it actually is.” Mainly because those are the heights I work most commonly with.
The author of this article really does make a lot of good points about safety and risk complacency in the workplace. Even I know that if I'm doing the same task over and over again, I get complacent about the safety risks. Ladder, genie, and general height safety are just several on a long list of semi-mundane tasks with moderate to severe consequences. Earlier this year, I personally made a "stupid-mistake", where I sent a T-50 stapler flying out of a genie from 30ft up because I was so focused on coiling up cable that I hadn't noticed that the stapler had gotten caught in the bottom of the bundle. Had I been more cautious and less gung-ho about my job and the task I was doing, I probably would have noticed that the stapler was in a dangerous location and that it was not tethered off to the lift. But after having been in a genie a million times and doing all manner of work in it, I was overly complacent in my safety measures. Vigilance, awareness, and focus above all else really are key to workplace safety.
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