As a Safety Professional I always get a extremely worried for you guys
when you talk about what you climb with. The things you are trusting
your life to up there should not be trusted.
A positioning belt is for positioning, it is not for climbing. If you
use your positioning belt for climbing you are placing yourself in a
terrible situation.
A fall is not to be sustained by your positioning loops. It creates all
kinds of issues with the physics and with the body. A proper fall arrest
will disperse the energy across a connection on the upper back into the
legs and hips, vertically. A positioning system is designed around
horizontal forces.
A proper system (not a belt) has both positioning systems and fall
arrest systems. The positioning systems are horizontal components
which send forces to your hips and to your legs depending on which way
you hook up, and whether you lean directly back or whether you sit into
it. These are designed to hold your position on the tower, to only do
that.
The fall arrest system incorporates into a full body harness. Two six
foot lanyards are attached to a point on the harness in the upper back.
This system is designed soley to save you from a fall. Many people will
climb their whole lives and never utilize this system. You generally have
a left hand lanyard and a right hand lanyard, both can be switched if
needed. When climbing you attach one, climb until it is at your shins,
attach the other one above you head, remove the bottom one, and keep
climbing. This assures you have 100% connection. Positioning systems do
not count as connection in industry (as they should not).
If an employee of mine is found to be connected with only a positioning
system it is grounds for immediate termination. This is how serious this
is. It is my duty as a safety engineer to drill into everyones heads
that positioning does not equal fall protection. It does not protect
you, it may or may not save you.
You guys are climbing with old technology. Driving around in car without
seat belts and airbags. Many survived before those safety countermeasures
were introducted, but many, unneccessarly died. I believe this what is
happening in the amateur tower climbing community.
I fear that the activities you are engaging in are not optimized. This
means that statistics will start to play, human components will start
to play large factors. Climbing with a proper system introduces habits
which reinforce safe practices. A fall arrest system creates a harmony
to your climbing. You clip, climb, clip, unclip, climb. You do this
constantly until you reach the point where you remove your positioning
lanyard from your harness and attach it to the tower. At that point,
you are still 100% connected. You have one fall protection lanyard on
the tower as well as your positioning system.
A positioning only system does not easily allow this harmony, or this
safety. It is also not designed with this premise in mind. It is only
to position you on the tower. I realize many of you have concocted strange
ways to attach your positioning system to the tower. These, simply, are
not acceptable. If you climb with only your friction lanyard attached
around the tower, you are playing against deadly chance. In a fall this
method is not guaranteed (or even intended) to arrest you. It will
however break your jaw, cause concussions, immobilize your body which
will defeat the rigidness needed by this system and cause further
falling.
Other systems of attachment are not fluid, and above all are not designed
around the idea of dynamic falls. This gets into some mechanical and
nonmechanical physics and is complicated in its basis, but mainly,
tower climbing is a dynamic climbing situation, one where there is a
danger of a fall. In rappelling, caving, you are in a static situation,
where there is no threat of fall (as strange as this may seem, it is
physically the case due to rigging, etc). This means that cavers use
static ropes, whereas rock climbers use dynamic ropes. Dynamic ropes
are designed to stretch a certain percentage as it relates to rope
length. This cushions your fall, reduces your injury by spreading your
sustained force over a longer distance. Furthermore, harnesses for
sport climbing are designed around placing the forces in a special way
on the hips, on the back of the legs. A positioning system does not
attempt to do this, it would be bad engineering, because this is not
its purpose. All this basicaly means, you thinking that you are attached
to the tower by a static rope is trouble. A rock climber would never
fall into a static rope, in many cases that would mean death over
exactly the same fall. You are attempting to fall into a static rope.
This creates shock on the body, forces it is not designed to handle,
forces your harness is not designed to handle. I am not a Mechanical
Engineer, therefore I cannot give you the moments and the stress
anaylsis from the top of my head, but my friend has calculated them
for me over a napkin at dinner and it's phenomenal, breathtaking.
You thinking you are safe with your hacked together system does not
equal you being safe. I've been presented with a thousand fatal
injury investigations and in most of them, I'm sure the individuals
believed they were within their operating abilities and their own
personal safety thresholds. This, obviously was not the case. That
is why people like me exist. If you worked for me I would tell you
that this is unexceptable and enforce it, however you don't, so I
can only ask you to the depth of all my training and experience.
Working in the tower industry myself this is not simply safey spew.
This stuff saves you, and in the small microcosm I worked, I heard
countless stories of its effectiveness. If you handed those guys a
'body belt' they would look at you like you gave them a canoe to
cross the Atlantic.
A complete system will not cost you a lot. I bought mine for around
$150. A fall arrest and position system combination enables you to be
much more versatile on the tower, much more productive, and much more
safe. As with most safety enhancements you will find it not only
increases safety or improves your life, but it will also save you money,
save you time, save you motion, and increase productivity. There is no
excuse not to.
Please, everyone follow this advice. None of us want to see anymore
of our friends pass on.
Photographs of my system can be seen here:
http://ke9r.com/tower-work.html
73 Greg/KE9R
KE9R.com
---- ----
On Sat, 19 Jul 2003, Cliff Bond wrote:
To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
> Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2003 06:52:09 -0400
> From: Cliff Bond <WA4MWM@triad.rr.com>
> To: W7NN@aol.com, towertalk@contesting.com
> Subject: [TowerTalk] Positioning Belt needed...
>
> I am in need of a replacement positioning belt (the belt that goes around
> the tower that you lean back on so that you can work hands-free). Any
> suggestions as to a good source (best product, price, availibility, etc.).
>
> I talked to someone at Glenn Martin. They recommended a one-inch
> single-strap nylon type. I want somethong more "substantial." The one I am
> replacing is about 2" and is made up of multiple-layers. With all due
> respect, I don't think I would have too much confidence in a single 1" nylon
> strap.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Cliff
> WA4MWM
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless
> Weather Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any
> questions and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
>
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