Why is Fall Protection So Critical in the Workplace and What’s the Best Way to Prevent Falls?

Fall protection is a collection of techniques and systems that help prevent falls and injuries at work. Fall protection is critical to protecting employees in all sorts of industries, from construction to shipyards because falls are among the leading causes for workplace injuries and deaths. As a person hiring workers, you must implement fall protection safety standards before they can even set foot on the construction site.

Having the basic knowledge of fall protection and its significance can be the difference between your employees going home at night and you’re going to the hospital.

Find out what the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) expects from employers, so you can protect your employees and minimize violations.

What Is the Importance of Fall Protection?

Falls are one of the leading causes of death in the construction industry, contributing to almost 38 percent of deaths in 2019. Although falls are typically multi-factorial, appropriate training and safety equipment are often protective against falls. Fall protection equipment will indeed prevent falls, and they can decrease the statistics of injured workers in the workplace.

Fall protection can save lives, and that is its most important advantage. Fall protection prevents employees from falling and suffering severe injuries. Employer’s priority should be his workers’ safety, and thus employers should focus on fall protection to their workers.

What Can You Do to Prevent Falls?

Fortunately, plenty of things can be done to reduce or rather eliminate the prediction of falls at work. First, it is important to consider potential fall hazards before work begins. By anticipating risks, you are able to put the right fall protection in place before injuries happen. This is commonly known as a hazard assessment. List out the ways a worker can fall and how to mitigate against it.

During your assessment of the work area, you should develop a fall protection plan identifying what fall protection systems will be needed. A vital part of this process is ensuring your workers are protected against falls. Consider whether any of these types of fall protection apply to you based on your workplace:

• Guardrail systems: Guardrails are barriers erected to prevent workers from falling over an edge to a lower level.
• Safety nets systems: Safety nets are fixed under workplaces where workers need to work suspended at height or above machinery. Safety nets, for instance, would be built under skywalks or bridges.
• Personal fall protection systems: These systems — also known as personal fall arrest systems — safely stop workers before they fall to lower levels. These systems are used to secure the worker at the level they are working.
• Warnings lines: Warning lines are often used on roofs to highlight unprotected high sky sides and edges. Warning lines alert workers to nearby hazards so that they can avoid risks.
• Controlled access zones: Controlled zones are sections with some specific work in progress without traditional fall protection. These areas are generally only accessible by those required to do so, due to the risks of overcrowding hazardous areas.

If using these methods of fall protection is not possible, safe work practices and training can help to eliminate falls at work. While you may have fall prevention systems correctly in place, if your employees have not been trained on proper usage, they are still at risk.

What to Do After a Fall Happens

If one of your employees does take a tumble, it’s important that you and your other workers are aware of what to do. Some accidents can mean the difference between life and death when someone is not trained in CPR and first-aid. Although what you will do is up to the severity of the fall and the person’s injuries, here are a few things to remember:

1. Call 911: The first thing you should do is call 911. But do this immediately, before the worker leaves the current job to attend to someone with serious injuries that require medical attention.
2. Don’t move the person: Unless the person is in immediate danger, avoid moving the individual who fell. Do your best to keep them from standing up or moving, too, as that may worsen any internal injuries they have, he said.
3. Give first aid and CPR: If the injured person is bleeding, apply firm pressure in an attempt to stop it. You should also see if that person is conscious, breathing, and has a pulse. If there is no pulse, start and continue CPR until medics show up.
4. Stay calm: These situations can be stressful and frantic, but staying calm is vital for everyone involved. If you stay calm, you will be in a better position to assist the injured person. Also, keep the injured worker calm and reassure them help is on the way.
5. Submit necessary reports: Your company may have its own process for submitting incident reports. Also, be sure to report any serious injuries or deaths to OSHA.

Employers Fall Protection Requirements OSHA

OSHA requires that an employer provide fall protection for an employee: when working on a walking-working surface that has an unprotected side or edge that could expose an employee to a fall; or.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires employers to supply a set of working conditions that are free from recognized hazards, including the necessity of fall protection to protect its employees against the risk of falling from overhead or into holes in walls and floors. As an employer, there are some OSHA requirements that you need to keep in mind:

• Everyone has a job to do: OSHA is about hazard assessment. The employer now has to look at the site and decide if fall protection is required. If the employer does, the employer will have to pick the fall protection methods and provide workers with the systems at no charge.
• Some elevation requirements: OSHA has specified minimum heights for some operations when employers are required to provide fall protection. For instance, it requires fall protection at 8 feet for longshoring jobs, 6 feet for construction, 5 feet for shipyards, and 4 feet for general industry places. If employees are working over dangerous machinery and equipment, such as conveyor belts, you must also offer fall protection no matter what the distance.
• Safety from slip and trip: Employers must ensure the workplace is clean, dry and free of known hazards that may cause slipping and tripping.
• Employee training: All employees must be properly trained about job hazards and fall protection in the language they understand.

Training is an essential part of ensuring your employees are ready for potentially hazardous work environments. There are numerous approaches to training your employees. One of the most critical steps might be to look into comprehensive certificate courses from Safety Counselling