Statistical record of death and injuries from fall of workers from height significantly make the importance of risk management prominent. Fall arrest systems are designed particularly for workers like construction workers, window and panel cleaners, chimney installers, fire workers, painting professionals, solar panel installing technicians and many more professional experts who regularly need to deal with risky working hours at heights.
The three different components like body harness, Anchorage, and a connector. The means of connection of the fall arrest system might consist of a lanyard and a lifeline and a combination of both.
There are multiple standards of fall arrest systems at work:
According to the records of Fire and Safety Australia, almost 29 people die in Australia every year due to work-related fall and almost half of those fatal cases involve fall from a height of 3 meters or even less than that. Since it is effectively impossible to erase the need to work at high altitude or elevated surfaces, it is rather professionally smarter to incorporate the compulsory and trained use of fall restraint systems.
While manufacturing industries, construction industry, transport industries are some the most prominent segments where injuries and deaths from fall occur maximum, yet any and every industry or profession dependent on working at heights can minimize the risk-oriented to ascensions with the help of these systems.
The anchorage and the fall protection system must be made in such a way that they can also prevent a swing fall. During any type of fall arrest, the body weight needs to get reduced when falling down in consonance with the force of gravity, so it is the fall arrest lanyard that comes into effect at that time.
How Does Fall Restraint Systems Work
There various equipment which is categorized under fall restraint equipment, and these essentially include handrails, guardrails, roof walkway systems as well as planned well-defined restraint lines. While the fall arrest system is to control the risk of life and casualties under high-risk zones at heights, the restraint systems are rather referred for lower risk operations at heights.
These systems are stable and secure, with a well laid secure protection system. These are effectively preferred in industries, manufacturing units, warehouses, etc.
Precautions
However, just installing fall restraint systems is not sufficient to secure the safety of your workers. In order to ensure that these systems are utilized and work in a proper way, you need to follow certain ground rules as well.
- All workers accessing these systems and working at heights need to be professionally trained with thorough practice sessions as well, even if they are not accessing the system for a long time.
- The systems need to be maintained so that any fault of malfunctioning of the systems does not cause injuries.
- Inspection of the restraint systems by certified and authorized technicians needs to be done routinely to ensure that the systems are in best condition to offer support.
- Even if a worker is well trained there should be experts and emergency management team present within the working area to manage any case of mishandling of the devices or accidents.
- The kind of rigging that is generally acceptable for any fall arrest system provides that the person or the mason does not fall to a certain lower level and that his or her body does not suffer any form of injury.
- There are different types of fall arrest blocks that are available in the market. There are inertia reels and retrieval blocks which work in the best possible way to give you an idea about the fall arrest methods.
As an employee, it is your prime duty to ensure that your work unit where workers need to entail life risk in working at heights are guarded and protected with appropriate fall arrest systems and protection systems.