Health and Safety While Working At Height
Just how far down do you need to fall to do yourself a serious injury? Not more than a couple of metres. It’s understandable to take for granted your safety when you feel able as you trim branches off the tree in your garden and have a lot of experience of heights in high areas. But even the most able, knowledgeable tree surgeon or roofer has experienced serious injury when working at height. Why would that be? Because if you slip, you’ve no chance to react. Once gravity takes over, you’ve zero chance to rectify the error.
So it’s absolutely vital you protect yourself from falls when working off the ground by utilising arrest equipment like safety anchors. It’s irrelevant if you’re simply reducing a couple of limbs from a tree, height safety equipment is required.
So what type of height safety equipment should you use? Well, depending on the job you must perform, you should be thinking about any of the following: Pole straps, Slings, Harnesses, Static line rope and rope protection, Lanyards, Kits, Karabiners, rope grabs and connectors and Pulleys.
If your job demands you to work in high places, such as quarries ,civil engineering, telecoms or manufacturing – you really ought to have been schooled in height safety and be very familiar with safety equipment. If not, you’re placing yourself at huge risk.
