I attended a provincial safety conference last week and I usually get at least one useful idea at these events. The thing that stood out at the meeting was not by the panel (although they had some good information) but it was in chat I had with another safety manager.
His safety work deals with a lot of projects that happen at heights, in building construction, on high steel, on bridges, and in other projects. I also have some years of experience working at heights, so we had that in common, although being on construction job sites is not my everyday thing.
One of his stories was about dealing with open holes in building construction, for shafts or for stairwells that don’t yet have stairs. This is an everyday occurrence to worry about for a construction site safety officer. The way these hazards are supposed to be dealt with on building projects is to put a piece of plywood over the hole to cover it, then nail it down and spray paint “hole” on the cover. Another method is to use lumber to build a temporary railing around the hole, which takes longer, but is also considered safer. You will also see guard rails at the open edges of buildings under construction, but that’s a topic in itself.
There have been many worksite fatalities from workers falling through open or partially covered holes. My conference friend said that he actually fell 32-feet to the ground, from a steel frame building, and incredibly, he was not seriously injured. He didn’t fall through a hole, but another worker bumped into him causing the fall. He said that his skydiver training helped him in the three seconds it took him to hit the ground. He instinctively put his body in the best position he could, to absorb the impact, and he rolled when he hit. You see now why this was my best take-away from the conference.
My safety tip this week, for around the home and yard, is to look for any hole that needs a cover or a railing. These could be a part of your deck that has a soft board or broken railing, or the top of a staircase that has a lose railing, or that doesn’t even have a railing. Maybe it is an old culvert or open well on your property or, as in my case, it is a septic tank that will need pumping soon. My tank has a 100-kilogram flagstone sitting on top of the opening, then a one metre culvert under that leading to the top of the tank cover. That hole will probably be open for a day, so I’ll use a leftover half sheet of plywood that I have, as the cover.
There are no children in my area but there are lots of wild critters and the neighbour’s dog. Explaining a missing dog to my neighbour would not be good at all.
You never know what interesting stories people that have to tell. Workers in the safety biz usually have some good ones.
James Golemiec is a Canadian Registered Safety Professional with over eleven years’ experience coordinating and managing complex safety systems at manufacturing facilities and performing inspections on project job sites across Canada.