SAFETY REPORT:

The dangers of falls will be highlighted across the construction industry from May 1-5 during the 10th annual National Safety StandDown Week.

In 2021, 378 of the 986 construction fatalities were due to falls from elevation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“I think the first step obviously is for everyone to recognize what constitutes a fall hazard,” said David Albright, senior construction services health and safety manager at Gannett Fleming in Camp Hill.

“It’s not only just working at heights or elevation. We also have falls on the same level. Slips, trips, falls. Slips and trips account for a large portion of our potential near misses and injuries. And usually, that’s associated with poor housekeeping, debris on sites, water, ice, snow, things like that. So, in addition to elevated surfaces, I think people need to be cognizant of what’s going on with the site itself, the surface that they’re actually working on.”

Fall prevention doesn’t just mean erecting warning lines and portable guardrails or wearing a harness and finding a suitable anchor point. It means thinking about whether workers even need to put themselves in a position where there is a fall risk.

“Is there a way that we can do the job that we need to do without climbing on something to look at it or putting ourselves in that situation?”

Albright said. “We’ve started looking at technology a little more to try to help us do that--using drones and remote cameras and things like that to try to just minimize or eliminate the whole need for our employees to go on elevated surfaces and expose themselves to the hazard.”

During National Safety StandDown week, Alexander Building

Construction Co. holds events at all of its job sites.

“It’s a great opportunity to teach our contactor community something new they can take with them as they progress in their careers,” said Mayone Sallows, safety manager at Alexander’s office in State College. Alexander is part of the Butz Family of Companies. Subcontractor partners are included in the safety events.

“The key to being a team is what’s most important. You’re only as good as your weakest link, right? You want your entire team, which includes your subcontractors and your management, to have that same knowledge when you’re going out to the field,” Sallows said.

She develops creative hands-on demonstrations to get team members involved.

In 2022, she demonstrated a virtual reality experience for members of a roofing subcontractor that works with Alexander, in addition to all of Alexander job sites throughout safety week. Workers put on VR goggles, giving them the experience of inspecting a harness and lanyard, selecting a proper anchor point, and undergoing a fall arrest if all steps were performed accurately.

“It tricks your mind. It makes you feel like you’re really in the moment. You could see the construction workers were hesitant to even walk out on the scaffolding,” Sallows said. “You could see them feeling for the ground. It was a lot of fun.”

Those who didn’t inspect their gear properly fell multi-stories in the virtual experience. On a television screen in the room, the audience caught a glimpse of what the worker with the VR goggles witnessed.

“I highly recommend it; the contractors had great feedback,” Sallows said.

Supervisors should hold toolbox talk briefings to go over the work for the day and reinforce the safety procedures for those tasks and the equipment that will be used, such as ladders and scaffolding, said Greg Johnson, president of The SRS Group in New Kingstown.

The firm provides medical case management, including around-the-clock remote triage services from nurses to injured workers.

“Most of us don’t pay attention, and that’s when we get hurt at home,” Johnson said. “But it’s especially dangerous in the construction field. Walking into your house, you pretty much know where everything is. On a construction site, things can change from day to day.”

Instructions and reminders on how to safely use the equipment are essential, he said. For example, ladders always must have three points of contact. Workers should always face the ladder. Trying to ascend backward is a huge risk.

“

A lot of people don’t use the right ladder. Many people don’t tie them off. They don’t make sure they’re on level ground. I’ve done this myself. You get on a ladder, you overreach, and you overextend yourself to try to reach something rather than move the ladder. It’s an easy way to get hurt or get killed.

— Greg Johnson President, The SRS Group in New Kingstown

Even simple tasks such as getting out of a vehicle can result in a fall if care isn’t taken.

“Either they’re shoveling something off the back of the truck and they go to get off, or they’re getting out of the cab of a truck,” Johnson said. Surfaces get wet and slick. Workers move too quickly because it’s a simple task that’s taken for granted.

“That’s when you get careless,” Johnson said. Walking around a job site while talking or texting on a phone or entering data on an iPad can be dangerous, Albright said. The practice at Gannett Fleming is for team members to find a safe place to stop and have their conversation or enter their data. Fall prevention through design minimizes risk, both for the construction workers who are building a structure and for the occupants who will be using it post-construction.

“We try to be as proactive as we can, especially from the engineering side of things. We try to emphasize to our design engineers when they’re designing facilities to keep not only the construction workers in mind in terms of fall protection but also the facility’s end user, the maintenance people,” Albright said.

Instead of leaving a flat roof with a flat edge, a parapet wall can be designed around the perimeter. Mechanical equipment on the roof can be placed closer to the center, a safe distance (continued)