[CQ-Contest] Tower safety

[Jim George]

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 at contesting.com] On Behalf Of 
>rjairam at 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 at 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
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> >
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