Narrator: Our next strategy is controlling fall hazards.
This means that if a worker takes a fall, their fall protection system
is designed to slow them down and distribute enough force to prevent injury.
Doug: The benefit to using an SRL versus using a lanyard, is on a lanyard system, although
a fixed length, you have to fall the full length of it before deceleration occurs.
Whereas, using a retractable, it has the ability to arrest
the fall in a very short distance.
Class A's are 24 inches or less, class B's with
a maximum of 54 inches.
And reality is, that if a block or a small block like this,
this being attached to the anchorage, and this being attached to the
worker, if they begin to fall or begin to accelerate, it's going to stop them in a very
short period of time.
Class A retractables, generally speaking, are smaller block retractables, or little
Ones, also commonly known in the market as a PFL or a personal fall limiter.
And the presence here is that on these we can
go block to the anchor, hook to the worker, or because it's a personal fall limiter,
it can be worn in a condition where the block goes to the worker, and the
hook goes to the anchor.
It will still arrest in the same configuration.
But the idea is that the lightweightness of it allows it to be permanently or temporarily
affixed to the worker this way, as opposed to having to find the anchor
and then attach to your d-ring in that configuration.
When we need longer lengths, longer than six or ten feet,
because some of the work environments that we use require a longer lanyard,
then we get into medium blocks or large blocks, and there's even two
hundred footers on the market.
But standard you're going to see somewhere between 20 25 30 35 50 75 60, there's a couple
different ranges.
Now as a class B retractable, although it has the ability to go a little further in
a test environment, in most cases, if the anchorage
or the block is above your head and you're falling directly below it, it will react very
quickly, using the fact that the drum will spin, and it is almost the same principle
of that of a seatbelt.
You move at a normal pace, it will pay out.
You come back, it will retract back in, reducing the potential for trip hazards.
But the fact that it will arrest your fall, in such a short distance, only benefits us
in many cases.
Less forces to the body because we haven't accelerated, and now I need less clearance
because of the design features.
Narrator: Fall arrest is a personal fall protection system used to control an
employee's fall.
Its components include an anchorage, body harness, and a
connector.
The connector needs to include a deceleration device, like a shock
absorbing lanyard, which is attached to the d-ring on your harness.
If you're planning on using fall arrest, it's imperative
that you understand how to calculate fall distance and use appropriate
anchorage, both of which are covered in other videos.
Dustin: When we move to fall arrest, the systems and the components that you're connected to
are doing absolutely nothing for you until after you go off that edge, until after you
fall, and once you fall they should be designed so that they stop you before you can hit a
lower level or the ground, and then arrest that fall and bring those forces down to an
acceptable level, which is 1,800 pounds by OSHA or an average of either nine hundred
or thirteen hundred and fifty pounds by ANSI, depending on what product it is.
But then we also have to take into effect: were our anchor points strong enough; fall
restraint in Oregon we need three thousand-pound anchors; and fall arrest we need five thousand-pound
anchors or two to one safety factors; do I have the
correct anchors; what happens after the fall; do I have systems set up so that I can rescue
the person who's just fallen; does everybody understand that there might be some swing
fall involved and that they're further down than they thought they might be.
So there's a lot more that has to be done.
There's a lot higher level of training that has to go on with fall arrest than there is
with fall restraint.
Narrator: A positioning system allows an employee to be supported on an elevated vertical
surface, like a wall or windowsill and have both hands free.
It needs to be rigged so that an employee cannot fall more
than two feet, and support twice the impact load of an employee's fall, or 3,000
pounds, whichever is greater.
A common example of the system would be iron workers that use Positioning Systems while
tying rebar.
Dustin: A safety net is a synthetic material that has been put up underneath or around
a place where there's a fall hazard, and it's been designed to be a system where workers
or objects, sometimes safety nets are for people, and
sometimes safety nets are for catching debris that could be falling down on to the
people or things, and sometimes safety nets are a combination of personal
and debris netting.
We see safety nets being used a lot in bridgework.
We see them being used in open atriums.
On the East Coast we see safety nets being used a lot.
On the West Coast we don't see safety nets being used quite as much as we do on the East
Coast.
Netting can be a very effective means of fall protection.
A properly set up net in construction on a deck can protect a
lot of people at once.
A netting system when properly set up protects everybody
that's around it, without them having to do anything else at the same time.