Tower Safety Solutions

Tower Safety Emergency Management

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What You Can Do To Prevent Emergencies 

How You Can Respond Promptly if an Emergency Occurs 

Techniques For Rescuing a Suspended Worker

If you or your employees work from exposed, elevated surfaces, you’re probably familiar with the personal fall arrest system and you know that it can save your life if you use it properly. A personal fall-arrest system will stop your fall, but what do you do after it stops your fall? Unless someone can rescue you — or you can rescue yourself — a personal fall-arrest system will leave you hanging in space, sometimes a long way from a safe level.

The important point is this: If a fall leaves you suspended in a personal fall-arrest system, you must know how to rescue yourself or someone else must know how to rescue you PROMPTLY. The reason? The pressure that results from hanging in a body harness can constrict blood flow between your lower extremities and your heart. If you can’t reduce the pressure promptly, you could lose consciousness within minutes. A prompt rescue can mean the difference between life and death.

Obviously, you should try to prevent emergencies so that you don’t have to respond to them. Emergencies happen unexpectedly but you can prevent most of them by identifying and then eliminating or controlling the hazards that cause them. If an emergency does happen, you need a strategy for responding to it promptly. The best way to develop such a strategy is through a written emergency-response plan.

What You Can Do To Prevent Emergencies

Identify Hazards that Cause Emergencies

The first thing you should do is look for fall hazards in the tasks that workers do and the areas in which they work. Examples of hazardous tasks include placing rebar, connecting steel beams, conducting exterior building maintenance, and working on roofs. Hazardous areas include holes in roofs and floors, hoist areas, unprotected roof edges, and slippery or unstable surfaces (including ladders and scaffolds).

Eliminate or Control the Hazards

After you identify fall hazards, you need to eliminate or control them so that they won’t cause an emergency. For example, you can eliminate many workplace fall hazards by placing rigid covers over holes, installing guardrails around unprotected roof edges, keeping walkways clean and slip-free, and making sure that workers use ladders and scaffolds that will support them and their equipment. Examples of methods for controlling task-related fall hazards include warning lines, safety nets, positioning devices, roof brackets with slide guards, and personal fall-arrest systems.

Responding Promptly if an Emergency Occurs

The best way to ensure prompt, effective rescues is to develop a written emergency-response plan. This is your strategy for responding to fall-related emergencies. It doesn’t need to be a massive document; however, it should show that you’ve thought about how to eliminate or control fall hazards and to ensure that workers will know how to respond promptly if something goes wrong. At a minimum, your plan should do the following:

• Establish emergency-response procedures
• Establish a chain of command
• Identify critical resources, including first responders, medical supplies, and rescue equipment
• Require emergency-response training for those affected by an emergency

Establish Emergency Response Procedures

Every emergency-response plan should have specific procedures — preferably, in writing — that describe what people must know and do to ensure a fallen worker receives prompt attention. These procedures include the following:

• Reporting an emergency
• Rescuing a suspended worker
• Providing medical and first aid
• Evaluating what caused the emergency

Establish a Chain of Command

All employees should know their roles and responsibilities during an emergency; however, one person must be responsible for managing the emergency, i.e., assessing its scope and directing the efforts of others. Make sure back-up personnel can take over for key players when they are absent.

Identify Critical Resources

Prompt rescues won’t happen without trained first responders, medical supplies, and appropriate equipment. First responders include those who perform rescues and provide medical services. They must understand the procedures in your emergency plan, know how to administer first aid, and use rescue equipment.

Every worksite needs medical supplies for likely injuries. What medical supplies are available for emergencies at your site? Are they appropriate for injuries that are likely to occur? Be sure to store the supplies in clearly-marked, protective containers and make them available to all shifts.

Identify on-site equipment that responders can use to rescue a suspended worker. Examples include extension ladders and mobile lifts. Technical rescue equipment — such as pulleys, winches, or brake tubes — may be necessary at some sites.

Always determine where and how each type of equipment would be effective in a rescue effort. Make sure the equipment will permit rescuers to reach a fall victim, that it’s available when rescuers need it, and that rescuers know how to use it. For example, will the longest available ladder reach a suspended worker? If not, what equipment will reach the worker? When equipment is needed for a rescue, will workers who know how to use it be available? Also, think about how seasonal and environmental conditions will affect rescue equipment and those who use it: Equipment that works well during the summer may not work during the winter.

Require Emergency Response Training

An effective emergency-response plan ensures that on-site workers know emergency procedures, know how to use available rescue equipment, and — if necessary — know how to contact off-site responders. Workers who use personal fall-arrest systems and who work alone must know how to rescue themselves. Those who work at a remote site may need a higher level of emergency training than those who work near a trauma center or a fire department.

Techniques For Rescuing a Suspended Worker

If you use a personal fall-arrest system and are suspended as the result of a fall, you must know how to rescue yourself or you must be rescued promptly. Self-rescue methods include the foot wrap and the rappel. An aided rescue involves at least one trained responder and equipment appropriate for the nature of the rescue. ( For illustrations on how to do a foot wrap and a rappel, please see the printed version of the March 2002 issue of Tower Times.)

A word of caution. If you use them properly, the rescue methods de-scribed below may save your life. But you must first learn them and practice them under the supervision of an experienced fall-rescue instructor.

Self-Rescue

A personal fall-arrest system can save your life if you fall, but your harness won’t hold you comfortably while you’re suspended. If you can’t relieve the pressure it exerts on your legs, which constricts blood flowing back to your heart, you could lose consciousness. The first thing you should do is relieve the harness pressure; the foot wrap will relieve the pressure and allow you to climb up or down for short distances. You should learn the foot wrap if you use a personal fall-arrest system and if a fall could leave you suspended more than 35 feet above a lower level.

You can use a foot wrap to lower yourself short distances. However, if you’re suspended more than 35 feet and you need to descend quickly, the rappel is the more effective method.

Aided Rescue

Anyone who is suspended from a lifeline and can’t perform a self rescue will need help from trained rescuers. Consider, for example, the worker who has a heart attack and falls or a suspended worker who is injured as a result of the fall. Aided rescues involve trained rescuers and appropriate equipment. Keep in mind the following in deciding what equipment is appropriate:

• Can you use extension ladders, forklifts, or elevating platforms to perform aided rescues — or do you need technical rescue equipment?
• Will the equipment be available and ready to use when you need it?
• Can rescuers always reach a suspended worker with the equipment?
• Do rescuers know how to use the equipment?

If possible, use on-site equipment such as extension ladders, forklifts, or elevating platforms for aided rescues. Only if this equipment isn’t available or isn’t appropriate should you consider using technical rescue equipment.

Technical equipment appropriate for aided rescues includes pulley systems, brake-tube systems, and winch systems. Each has advantages and disadvantages.

TESSCO® supports the safety solutions outlined in this article obtained through Oregon’s division of OSHA (www.orosha.org  ) and as printed in the March issue of NATE’s Tower Times. Each reader is responsible for obtaining proper training regarding the material contained in this article. The information on responding to emergencies regarding fall arrest is intended to give the reader an overview of what is involved in self-rescue. For more information on safety solutions products available through TESSCO®, please ask your TESSCO Account Manager.

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