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714 Fall Protection Program
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Real-World Falls

Two journeyman electricians were relocating power poles to service job trailers at a landfill. They were using an older digger derrick truck that had a boom and an auger for drilling holes. Then end of the boom had a motorized hoist for setting the poles and there were two side-by-side buckets on a separate onboard aerial work platform at the end of the boom.

At the start of the day, they drilled two holes for poles near a tall shop building and set the first of two 50-foot poles without incident.

They picked up the second pole using the hoist cable at the end of the digger derrick boom. A synthetic-fiber lifting strap was wrapped around the pole and attached to the hook. Another rope was attached to the eye of the strap so that the strap could be loosened from the ground. After they set the pole, one of the electricians was unable to remove the strap by tugging on it, so he decided to remove it from the aerial platform.

He climbed the onboard fixed ladder, grabbed the top of the bucket with both hands, and placed one foot on its outside lower lip. As he swung his other foot over the top of the bucket, it swiveled vertically and he fell, hitting parts of the truck and landing on the ground. His injuries included two fractured vertebrae and soft tissue damage.

Findings

  • The equipment was not regularly inspected and maintained in safe operating condition.
  • The bucket leveling cable, which kept the bucket level as the boom was raised and lowered, broke under the electrician's weight, which caused the bucket to swivel.
  • One of the electricians said that, from time to time, he had checked things on the truck, such as tires, lights, and oil and water levels, but had not performed a pre-operation inspection or thorough periodic inspection on the digger derrick or the aerial boom lift.
  • The company field superintendent said the truck had not been thoroughly inspected in over two years.

Source: Oregon OSHA 2014