Jim, Also with all due respect, these are all very serious issues that have
nothing to do with body harnesses and free climbing. Failure analysis deals
with the direct cause.
Issue one - don’t be on a tower all day. Separate out work and know your
physical limits. Don’t climb alone.
Issue 2 - Be 100% sure what tower you are climbing.
Issue 3 - Job specific, don’t let a project take down the tower you are on.
The response of hanging up you current belt does not add to the safety of the
three items listed.
I have no objection to improving safety generically. I applaud you for doing
it and think it’s a good idea. But the action provides no increase in safety
for the three listed items.
We all want to do feel good things that are in fact good overall. But if you
are going to draw specific examples of items to solve. We need to relate the
action taken with the item being solved.
Guys - I want a good relation dialog to improve safety. It helps us all to
increase safety. But saying - my action will be to buy a better climbing
harness does not improve safety for virtually all of the discussed items so far.
Ed N1UR
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim George [mailto:n3bb@mindspring.com]
Sent: Saturday, November 16, 2019 6:50 AM
To: Edward Sawyer; rjairam@gmail.com; James Cain
Cc: CQ-Contest Reflector
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Tower safety
With all due respect, the discussion on climbing w/out the OSHA-approved
climbing harness (Personal Protection Equipment) and/or taking any sort of risk
by free climbing or being unattached at times is just foolish. You will be OK
until you are not. Then you could have an accident. The data are clear.
Over forty years of tower work on my towers and those of friends, I have had
three occasions where problems occurred. Once, a fellow climber passed out at
140 feet due to the length of time on the tower and resultant muscle fatigue
and blood circulation; once when the base of an old sixty foot tower we were
taking down, unknown to us was rusted and not secure ... both of us were able
to climb down once the bottom started to rotate on the concrete pad; and once
when attempted placement of a very heavy mast into the very small opening at
the thrust bearing caused the gin pole to break and the gin pole and mast then
bent over the top of the tower ... supported only by the rope. A fall of this
heavy object could have severed the guy wires on 120 feet of 45G tower. The
first of these resulted in a 911 call and EMS emergency people who came, but
actually complicated the situation because they were not trained in climbing at
all, and the last one resulted in one of my friends nearly having the end of
one of his fingers cut off by a sharp edge of the gin pole. We were fortunate
in all three as we got down without additional injury of the loss of any towers.
For one, I'm hanging up my Klein lineman's "Bodybelt" climbing belt and not
going up again until I have the proper PPE, and also am taking the pledge of
slower climbing and the steps recommended by K1IR. The video in its final form
along with associated written material will become available to all once final
and it is highly recommended that this be a high-profile program at all
ham-radio club meetings and other appropriate gatherings.
Jim N3BB
At 06:46 AM 11/15/2019 -0500, Edward Sawyer wrote:
>I think that issue is that the discussion Jim had did not get to the
>true root cause analysis in all cases. HE did speak about temporary
>guying below the work on a tower and doing the "off the tower"
>movement of guys which clearly was a root cause of more than one known tower
>incident.
>
>I believe that a rusted base at the concrete exit point was a root
>cause and I am not sure I heard that mentioned.
>
>W0AIH's fatality was in no way due to not using the proper safety
>harness. There are pictures of him using one. I am not sure what
>failed in his arrest system. But wearing the wrong harness is not what it was.
>
>To be truthful to the root cause analysis process, of which I do a lot
>if it at work, is there documented fatalities of wearing the lesser
>harness than what Jim was showing on the video? If so, what happened,
>and how would it be mitigated by that ewquipment?
>
>If we REALLY want to improve safety, we should focus on what's killing
>people. Not on what isn't killing people.
>
>Some of that occurred on Jim's talk. Some of it did not. And some of
>it is great advice but may have no direct impact on reducing what's
>killing people.
>
>Ed N1UR
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf
>Of rjairam@gmail.com
>Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2019 7:19 PM
>To: James Cain
>Cc: CQ-Contest Reflector
>Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Tower safety
>
>You got lucky.
>
>I prefer not to rely on luck, and it doesn’t take much time to get
>properly suited up at all.
>
>As for replacing the climbing apparatus, I wouldn’t trust it if it
>arrested a serious fall. Stress on that kind of apparatus is cumulative
>so there may be hidden danger.
>
>This is your life you’re gambling with and by all means I won’t
>tell you how to live it, but I prefer not to roll the dice.
>
>Ria
>N2RJ
>
>On Thu, Nov 14, 2019 at 3:22 PM James Cain <jamesdavidcain@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I did pretty serious tower work for more than 20 years and quit at age 44.
> > By the time I had got suited up in that equipment in the K1IR video
> > it would have been too dark to get any work done. And what's this
> > about "If you fall, (the manufacturer says) to throw away the
> > climbing
> apparatus"?
> > And what? Buy another climbing apparatus from us?
> >
> > K1TN
> > _______________________________________________
> > CQ-Contest mailing list
> > CQ-Contest@contesting.com
> > http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
> >
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