Safety Tip of the Month by Tim Bambrick
If It's Not 100%, It’s Not Fall Protection:
Usage of Twin personal Self retracting lifeline (SRL’s) and dual leg energy absorbing lanyards.
One of the key purposes of fall protection is keeping the worker continuously safe while they are preforming normal job functions at heights. This means 100 % tie off. Easier said than done, right? To reach the end goal of continuous safety we must start with mobility. I’m sure you have heard the folks in real estate say there are three important things to remember: location, location, location. Well if you talk to enough folks in fall protection, they will say the key is mobility, mobility, mobility. Keeping the worker 100% engaged to the fall arrest system begins with mobility. One of the things that concerns me most while reading incident reports is that many fall fatalities occur while the user is wearing a fall protection harness. Granted, there are many variables that impact fall fatalities. However, the common denominator is a failure to connect to an anchor or a fall protection system during an unintentional loss of balance while the worker is connecting from one secure point to another. Although, the worker may have been wearing a harness and/or a lanyard, they were not 100% connected to an anchor point or fall protection system during the fall event. You probably ask yourself how and why this happened. In most cases the worker was not given the correct equipment to perform his or her job duty while staying continuously connected to an anchor point or fall arrest system. This goes back to mobility. Most of these accidents happen when the worker is making a transition. Transitions occur when the worker continues to perform his/her job function after disconnecting and reconnecting from the fall arrest system in a different location while exposed to a fall hazard. An example of a transition like this would be transitioning from a single point tie off like an anchor strap and then connecting to a horizontal lifeline. The worker disconnections his or her SRL or energy absorbing lanyard then connects to the next system. It’s during this critical time that the worker must be 100% connected into a fall arrest or anchor point. How do you accomplish this? The first step is training, followed by practice applying the training with the correct equipment. This is where dual leg energy absorbing lanyards and twin personnel SRL’s come into play. Both of these pieces of fall protection equipment allow the user to obtain 100% tie off while making a transition from one anchor point or fall arrest system to the next, which allows excellent mobility. Think of it like monkey bars. The twin leg lanyard or the twin personal SRL line constituents are like your arms traveling from point to point. Before you move or make a transition you are always connected into your anchor point or fall arrest system before moving forward or backward. See figure below. Mobility, mobility, mobility. It’s a very simple concept but maintaining 100% tie off and allowing user mobility is critical in gaining continuous fall protection. Next month we will discuss using a twin leg energy absorbing lanyard versus a twin personal self-retracting lifeline. Stay tuned!
When unsure of safe work practices and equipment usage, please contact your company’s competent person or feel free to reach out to us at Malta Dynamics for help on correct product selection and usage.
Tim Bambrick Bio
Tim Bambrick holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Thaddeus Stevens College and has spent more than a decade in the fall protection and safety industry. He utilizes this wealth of experience as Director of Product Development for fall protection manufacturer Malta Dynamics. Whether developing new and innovative equipment, improving existing products, or validating new ones, he utilizes his unique expertise within the industry to ensure that Malta Dynamics is able to offer the highest quality products on the market. He currently sits as a voting member on the ASSE/ANSI Z359 committee helping to develop new criteria that will eventually become the standard for keeping workers safe. It’s this invaluable experience with the committee that gives him an especially keen eye for detail when qualifying products and developing new ones. His knowledge ranges from not only the science that drives and guides fall protection products, but he is also very aware of the user interface portion of products. He has a direct hand in instruction, training, and the overall use of the very products his group develops. Tim is at the very nerve center of Malta Dynamic’s belief in how they approach all they do - Solutions Bourne. For specific questions concerning technical safety issues or about Malta Dynamics products, Tim can be reached at tbambrick@maltadynamics.com.
