Tag Archives: crane safety

Renew your Safety Vows!

It’s the end of one year and the beginning of another. What a great time to renew your safety vows! What do I mean by this? Read on.

This is the time of year when we make resolutions. Well, why not just renew your promise to safety! Why not renew your commitment to 100% tie off? Why not take the time and talk to the ones you care about and tell them how this year you will not miss one day of being safe because you don’t want to miss out on one day with your loved ones. I know that things can still happen, but let’s make sure that it’s not due to stupidity! Let’s make sure that if anything happens that all of you did all that you could to make sure everyone gets home safe and alive.

Now is the time! Vow to be safe! Vow to update the hazard assessments. Vow to inspect the safety gear regularly, daily if possible. Vow to look out for your climbing brothers and sisters out there. Vow to make sure everyone involved in deployment is watched over. If you are a climber, then you have a responsibility not only to yourself to be safe, but to protect those around you. Take the time to swear that you will do all that you can every minute of the day.

Don’t just make this vow to your boss and your workmates. Make this vow to your family! To your mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, and children. Make this vow to the ones who really need you.

Remember that this is up to you. Lip service is one thing, commitment is another. Real commitment. Can you do that? I know you can, the real question is will you commit to it? Then, if you commit, will you live it. One thing that will help is to preach safety. Preach it to your workmates and to everyone around you. Then, you need to practice what you preach because if you don’t you will look like a hypocrite. So if someone points something out that you know you are doing wrong to save time, don’t make excuses, correct it.

This would be a good time to plan out the rescue training for you and your workmates. It’s a good time to plan to do all that you can to be safe and be prepared!

Do you understand what I am saying, live the creed. If not for your sake or your workmates sake, then think of your family.

If you won’t do this, then maybe it’s time you change professions. Maybe it’s time you left the climbing industry.

Hold yourself to a higher standard!

Be smart, be safe, and pay attention!

Go to my products page and look for something you may need. If you are starting out I have an eBook or Audiobook, Tower Climbing: An Introduction for you. If you work at tower sites I have the Field Worker’s Aid for Tower Site Work. If you want to make understand the SOW and how it can help you get paid or at least take the customer to court go ahead and order my SOW Training files. Maybe you want to look over the free SOW Overview first. Go ahead and share the information! Let others know.

What safety vows do you make each year?

Be smart, be safe, pay attention, and follow your plan!

Remember to help the Hubble Foundation because they help the families of the climbers.

www.HubbleFoundation.org

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When Lifts Fail! More near miss stories.

Hey, I thought I would offer more near miss stories because I saw that there was another rescue of some guys working a monopole on August 11th, 2014. They are not climbing but they were in a lift. Go to http://www.khl.com/magazines/access-lift-and-handlers/detail/item99810/Two-injured-in-boom-accident and http://kingston.wickedlocal.com/article/20140815/NEWS/140818333 to see how employees working for Timberline Construction got stuck in a lift. These poor guys were probably happy to be on a lift and it breaks down. They called in for help at 5:11PM local time when the Kingston Fire Department was dispatched. The platform on the lift fell about 30’, they were about 135’ in the air. Hard and fast, then stopped. This was enough to injury the 2 men on the lift, one had facial injuries and the other had ankle injuries. It had to be scary for these guys on the lift. Actually that turned out to be a good thing because they must have been about 130 feet up and that brought them down to 100’ where the fire department’s ladder could reach. Apparently there was a loud bang before the fall.

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When both Kingston Fire Department and Plymouth Fire Department crews got on site they did not want to try to operate the list because of the problems so they sent the PFD ladder up to help these guys. Thank GOD they are alive and well. This is a mechanical failure that could have been really bad but turned out well. These guys got to go home at night with a few injuries and a story. Very special thanks go out to the Kingston Fire Department!

Both workers had all the safety gear on and were wearing it properly! They are alive to tell us that today. The workers were treated. PFD and KFD kept the lift open until OSHA arrived to investigate. Then they cleared the scene.

The lift was a Genie Z-135/70. About a year ago, June 2013, in Buckinghamshire, UK, there was another accident on this type of lift that ended in death. The owner of those boom, Kimberly Access grounded the fleet and after investigation they devised a new safety procedure before putting the fleet back to work. UK’s Health and Safety and Kimberly Access conducted a full investigation to come to this conclusion.

https://www.millerfallprotection.com/pdfs/Fall-Protection-for-Aerial-Work-Platforms.pdf

http://capitolriders.org/education/Rigging_Handbook.pdf

More near miss stories:

Story 1: After I left my one company they had to raise some large dishes on a tower in upstate NY. Well the plan was to raise the dish and there were still crates of hardware all over the site. The dish was not directly under the tower. To save time they thought they would use the winch to move it and just guide it in. Well, when they raised the dish, it kicked, and pushed one guy towards the hardware crate where his leg, just above the ankle, got pinned between the crate and the dish, guess what happened, his leg snapped. It went from straight to a 90 degrees in seconds and was pinned until the rest of the people could get over there to free him. It happened so fast that some people were in shock. It pays to plan and have a clean site. He was laid up for a very long time. Lesson learned: clean site, plan the lift, tag the load, prepare the people, make sure the winch guy is on the same page as the crew.

Story 2: We were changing out a TV stack from a 90′ analog stack to a 65′ digital. When the new stack came up 1 of the crew members forgot to stay at the tower top to help land it and instead went up to the rooster head of the gin pole. When the guy tried landing it alone he got the first spud perfect but crossed holes on the second. We came down with all the weight resting on the spud. When we tried to take the weight back up, the stack jumped 4′ up, then came crashing back down into the tower top. We pinned it, but bent our gin pole pretty good. Could have been a bad day if it snapped. Lesson learned: plan where each person should be at the time of the lift, stick to the plan unless there is a good reason not to.

Lessons learned? You tell me! Other Lessons Learned posts here and here and here.

Thank you all for the Near miss stories and keep them coming!

Talk to me! Email me at wade4wireless@gmail.com or message me on Facebook or leave the information below. Or call and leave a message at my Google voice mail at 510-516-4283.

Do you love the Hubble Foundation because they need you now more than ever!

www.HubbleFoundation.org  

 

Here is where I ask for support.
My Books on Kindle:

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  Wireless Field Worker's cover V2

My PDF books so you can buy with PayPal:

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My PDF books so you can pay with Credit Card:

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Whistle blower information;

http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=330216

http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=OSHA-2011-0540-0001

By the way, if you read this far, I am planning to put out a new program training the tower workers on the paperwork and processes needed in this industry.