Back in February 07 one of my managers had a serious fall from a single story fixed ladder. All the details and drama related to this event is unimportant. OSHA was called in and this created more drama to the event. But what this did was to make me take a good look at how my company and my industry look at fixed ladders. Simply put fall protection on fixed ladder less than 20 ft is not required and is a gray area. So what do we do? Well this is what I am going to do.

Imagine a cold night in January and you have to climb a fix ladder some 20 feet and the ladder is cold, icy and slippery. If you slip just once your world will turn upside down. We as an industry can’t prevent accidents but we can prevent injury. This can be done with a good harness & a “Y” lanyard along with a program and instructions on how to use the system.

The way that this system works is simple, the worker is always attached when he is going up or down. One side of the lanyard is always attached. It will take this employee an extra 30 seconds to be safe.

The key to the harness is to get one that is comfortable and easy to put on. The one that we picked out the worker will not even notice he has one on-thus limiting problems. The system is around $275 per harness.

We as a comp-any will be set up on January 12th and I plan to take some pictures of our OSHA 10 certification class. This program will save injury. I encourage all of you to take a look at your operation and adapt a similar program. Give me a call-this is very important for all of you