The faces of fatality in the tower business
Death can come at any time for any of us. Last I heard, the mortality rate for humans was 100%. However, a few precautions in our daily lives can at least postpone us reaching that final destination.
With dangerous jobs in particular, managers and workers should be especially diligent in safety. In our industry, one of the most dangerous jobs is tower construction and maintenance. Tower workers climb or are hoisted to heights of hundreds of feet.
In January, three men plummeted to their deaths when a one-inch rope hoisting them up an Alltel Communications tower broke. They plunged 100 feet when the rope snapped. The workers and a foreman were changing guylines on the tower near Forrest City, AR. The Times-Herald in Forrest City reported that the rope hoisting the three men up the 250-foot tower was tied to the front of a pickup truck being backed up by the foreman. (See “Three Die in Fall from Tower,” www.mrtmag.com.)
If you know anything about OSHA guidelines, this incident should have raised a few red flags in your mind.
An “Alert” released by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in July of last year listed steps that employers should take to reduce the risk of worker injuries and deaths from falls during tower construction and maintenance. One of the first points was “ensure that hoisting equipment used to lift workers is designed to prevent uncontrolled descent and is properly rated for the intended use.”
Another important guideline (originally stated in OSHA’s compliance directive CPL 2-1.29, which became effective Jan. 15, 1999) was that only two tower erectors at a time were to ride the line for work at heights more than 200 feet “when towers are erected with a gin pole, conditions preclude the use of a personnel platform and other conventional methods of climbing using a ladder or other approved climbing devices might create a greater hazard from fatigue or repetitive stress.”
When workers have to be hoisted for work on a tower, the minimum requirements include worker training, trial lift and proof-testing procedures, and pre-lift meetings.
These are just a few of the key guidelines/directives that OSHA and NIOSH have published. In the same document, NIOSH stated that “recent NIOSH fatality investigations suggest that employers, supervisors, workers, tower owners, tower manufacturers and wireless service carriers may not recognize or appreciate the serious fall hazards associated with tower construction and maintenance.”
To control safety, you must think safety in everything you do. Be in control of yourself and never put tower work schedules ahead of your personal safety — good advice from John and Mark Hill, safety columnists for Site Management & Technology magazine.