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3.8 Protecting Yourself from Falls

Stephanie Oostman

A career in welding can take you into places and situations unlike any you thought possible, from working inside a ship hull, to building fighter jet engines, to being engulfed in flames while welding an oil pipeline. You may even find yourself in situations like standing in an angel wing basket that’s secured off the side of a building and is just wide enough for you to stand on. Once you hone the skills needed for the trade, you could be in any variety of environments, many of them bringing the risk of falling. Even a fall from just a few feet can be fatal or cause life-altering injuries. As a welder in construction trades, there are regulations that dictate measures to keep you and any worker safe from fall risks.

Harnesses

Two men working on a construction site wear fall protection harnesses to prevent injury.
Figure 3.18. Vertical job site / Photo Credit: Washington State Department of Transporation, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Figure 3.18 shows two workers several feet off the ground and tying off rebar. While they don’t appear to be welding, they do risk falling from their positions on the structure they are supported on. To prevent falls, these workers wear fall protection in the form of a harness and lanyards to clip onto the structure in which they work. Should something occur that causes the worker to lose their footing—like a misstep, slip, or other accident—the harness will support the user’s weight until they can be lifted back to safety. Harnesses are designed to catch a person should they fall from a height.

When putting on a harness, inspect the buckles and straps for damage. Make sure the harness is the appropriate size and fit for your body. It’s important that the harness fits snugly around the chest and the leg loops fit securely around the groin. If they are too loose, the straps can choke up suddenly if needed to catch a fall. This can cause rope burns, tissue damage, and disfigurement—or the wearer may simply fall through the harness when they need it the most. Never wear a harness that has been glued or taped together, and always keep your lanyard tied off when working.

Several individuals work on a building. One person reaches across a platform to secure his lanyard to a second position.
Figure 3.19. Fall Protection Tie-off / Photo Credit: Oregon Department of Transportation, CC BY 2.0

Attributions

  1. Figure 3.18: Bellevue Braids Construction by Washington State Department of Transporation is released under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
  2. Figure 3.19: Beam work (7415281734) by Oregon Department of Transportation is released under CC BY 2.0

License

Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Introduction to Welding Copyright © by Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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