Fall Protection
A fall hazard is anything in the workplace that could cause an unintended loss of balance or bodily support and result in a fall. Fall hazards are foreseeable. Employees may fall to:
- a lower level, for instance, from a roof to the ground, or
- to the same surface upon which the employee is working, for instance, from a slip or trip.
You can identify fall hazards and control them before they cause injuries. Fall hazards cause accidents such as the following:
- A worker walking near an unprotected leading edge trips over a protruding board.
- A worker slips while climbing an icy stairway.
- A makeshift scaffold collapses under the weight of four workers and their equipment.
- A worker carrying a sheet of plywood on a flat roof steps into a skylight opening.
Here is a real-life example involving a company cited for violations related to fall hazards. As you will read, a contractor fell from a sixth floor balcony.
Company Cited for Fall Hazards
OSHA cited a company for one willful and four serious violations related to fall hazards after a worker was injured by falling from a sixth floor balcony while attempting to access a suspension scaffold. A willful violation is one committed with intentional knowledge or voluntary disregard for the law's requirements, or with plain indifference to worker safety and health. Proposed penalties total $136,290. A serious violation occurs when there is substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result from a hazard about which the employer knew or should have known.
- The willful violation was for the use of makeshift devices on top of scaffolds to increase the level height for working and a failure to protect workers on scaffolds from fall hazards.
- The four serious violations were for (1) failure to install cross-bracing on the entire scaffold, (2) failure to ensure personal fall arrest systems were attached to a secure anchorage point and not scaffold guard rails, (3) failure to train workers to recognize and avoid hazards including falls, and (4) failure to ensure proper step ladder use.
In this example, the company had several violations that contributed to the worker's injuries. All of these hazards were foreseeable and could have been prevented.
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2-5. What is a fall hazard in the workplace?
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