Identifying Fall Hazards
A fall hazard is anything in the workplace that could cause an accidental loss of balance or bodily support that results in a fall.
What do you think? Is risk high, medium, or low?
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 is carrying a sheet of plywood on a flat roof and steps into a skylight opening.
Fall hazards are foreseeable. You can identify and control them before they cause injuries. The hazards that caused the above accidents could have been eliminated or controlled had they first been identified, evaluated, and corrected.
- Worker #1 was either distracted or did not recognize and correct the hazards. Had he been aware, he could have taken proper fall protection measures.
- Worker #2 did not identify and evaluate the hazard. He would have then taken measures to prevent slipping.
- Had the scaffold in #3 been properly inspected and evaluated before the workers and equipment loading it, the workers would not have been allowed to work on the scaffold.
- If the roof in #4 had been inspected and holes properly guarded, the fall through the skylight would not have occurred.
None of the hazards in the examples given above would have caused an injury if someone had identified, evaluated, and controlled them.
Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.
3-2. None of the hazards on a construction worksite can cause an injury if they are first _____.
You forgot to answer the question!