Horizontal Lifelines

Choosing the correct equipment for the job is very important.  It is amazing the creativity you see on the jobsites.  Last week I saw a guy working on a 6ft scaffold on wheels on the 4th floor of a new construction building.  They were framing up the exterior walls.  When I got closer to the worker, I noticed that he was wearing his harness loose and it had a 6ft shock absorbing lanyard on is back.  That is ok, but the lanyard went from his back to the hook of a 30 foot retractable which was tied to a lifting strap they used for lifting the equipment with the crane.  There were so many violations that I didn't know where to start.  I was there to get them OSHA compliant.  I started by making everyone stop what they were doing and take off the equipment they were using.  Now we were ready to start over.

I started with the A,B,C 's of fall protection.  Anchor, Body Harness, and Connecting Device.  Once we got through the basics, I showed them how they should be using a Horizontal Lifeline for what they were doing.  I rigged up a 100' lifeline which has 2 tie-off "D" rings on it.  I placed it up high on the concrete columns so that it would be at the level of the workers.  Once we got the HHL installed, it was time to show them how to put the harness on properly.  For the Connecting device, I set them up with the Guardian 11' web retractable.

Now that we have everything in place, the workers can now be up on the scaffold and move freely and still be safe if they happen to have a fall.  This only took 1.5 hours to train and set up so that everyone could be safe while getting their work done.