[Towertalk] RE: Double protection - climbing

[Pete Smith]

At 12:39 PM 12/17/02 -0500, sparks@apk.net wrote:
>If you fall several feet while hooked to a positioning lanyard, you will 
>almost
>certainly be seriously injured or killed.  If that lanyard is hooked to only
>one hip, as in the scenario described by below by Pete, the latter 
>possibility
>is greatly increased. Positioning lanyards are for fall PREVENTION not fall
>arrest.  The arresting forces on a lanyard without a shock-absorbing element
>are huge -- thousands of pounds for a 200lb person in 6 foot fall -- and 
>if you
>are not killed immediately, you will likely suffocate waiting for rescue 
>as you
>dangle from one side of your waist with your diaphragm compressed. It will 
>also
>be much more difficult for rescuers to get you positioned for descent from 
>that
>position.


I agree that two fall-arrest lanyards, or a y-lanyard, are preferable to 
what I described, but I think this disaster scenario is much 
exaggerated.  My positioning lanyard is only about 4 feet long.  It is not 
plausible that I could be killed by the sudden stop at the end of a 4-foot 
fall, with the stop impact distributed by a wide padded belt and full-body 
harness.  If that were the case, everyone who has ever fallen 4 feet onto a 
hard surface would have been killed.  Bruises yes, but dead, no.

73, Pete N4ZR
Sometimes a tower is just a tower