The is an excellent article in the August 2007 issue of
National Geographic Adventurer on page 44 available at:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/survival/skills/index.html
See: How to survive almost anything/Why smart people make
dumb mistakes.
This talks about why people who should know what they are doing
in dangerous situations make mental errors and have accidents.
Accidents are not always due to insufficient training or experience,
and in fact experience can actually cause accidents due to complacency.
Although it talks about rock climbing, the parallels to tower
climbing are obvious. Basically, the problem is that the really
experienced person goes on automatic pilot and stops observing
the situation around him. The fix for this is "mindfulness".
Continually pay attention to your surroundings, don't take
things for granted. They talk about a forest fire fighter
who sets his watch to ring every hour. Then he does a sanity
check. Where's the fire now? Are we where we belong? Do we
need to drink water? Is there anything unusual about this fire?
etc.
An example of mindfulness in tower climbing is the yellow jacket
problem. Around here they nest in any shiny pipe. You have to
always think about them. Another one is black widows.
Anyway, I think all tower climbers will find this article well
worth reading.
In the same issue (also on-line) is an interesting article about
Pitcairn Island, that rare DXCC counter. For some reason, the
article doesn't mention ham radio at all :-)
Rick N6RK
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