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[Towertalk] Double protection - climbing

To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: [Towertalk] Double protection - climbing
From: wf3h@ptdprolog.net (wf3h@ptdprolog.net)
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 15:45:50 -0000
For those of us who do climb, it's all too easy to hook a lanyard to 
something other than the tower.  I've put mine on a guy wire...BUT, I ALWAYS 
check my lanyard connections after I hook one and before I disconnect the 
other. That saved my life.

You have to adopt a system. It has to be automatic AND it has to include 
checking each and every detail.  When you're tired, or cold, it's the system 
which may save you.


Mark Beckwith <mark@concertart.com> said:

> > You'll be safer if
> > you have some sort of lanyard (i.e. the fall arrest lanyard on your fall
> > arrest harness) that you can attach above you and then you can climb up to
> it
> > safely since you'll be attached to the tower 100% of the time you're
> trying
> > to get around your appurtenances. (You do have a FAH, don't you?)
> 
> In my older years as I have used up more and more of my 9 lives, I kid you
> not, EVERY time I cross from below the guys to above the guys, (or a yagi),
> I am really thankful I adopted a "double protection" practice at my new
> station.
> 
> When I was young and foolish, I would take the gamble every time.  I try to
> avoid that nowadays.
> 
> On a related subject, which all day Friday as I put up 10M beams, I was
> thinking I should share with the world:
> 
> I had the good fortune to visit with a retired professional climber in 1994
> as I was putting up large DX Engineering yagis out at N6VI/KH6 (now KH7R)
> for a contest we were getting ready for.  He was an older guy who quit his
> career after a fall, who, seriously, was touristing out there, spotted us at
> work, and stopped by to see what we were doing (can't get it out of your
> blood, I guess).
> 
> We talked for a while.  ALWAYS one to try and learn from other peoples'
> mistakes, here was his mistake, which I think of EVERY TIME I cross past
> guys or booms:  As we all know, on a tower, you have to disconnect and
> reconnect your main lanyard time after time after time.  This fellow was in
> a hurry, and when he re-attached, it was mistakenly to the shank of a large
> tool, and not the big belt ring as he thought.  He leaned back and they were
> calling the ambulance.
> 
> We should all be glad he lived to tell this story.  Anyway, whenever I
> reattach, before I unattach the above mentioned double protection, I
> visually inspect my main lanyard to assure it is attached to my belt on both
> ends.
> 
> Thank God I got smarter as I got older.
> 
> Have a good holiday everyone, I'm off to help a friend with a 4-square which
> I will activate in the Stew.  See you on the air.
> 
> Mark, N5OT
> 
> 
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