Don’t Celebrate Autumn with a Fall
If you’re like most people, spring and fall conjure images of cleaning in one way or another. Whether it’s inside or outside your home or agency, there are seasonal lists of jobs to do. And many of them involve ladders. Consider these scenarios…
Scenario 1
After last night’s storm, the gutters are a mess. You grab your stepladder to clean them out, but it’s tedious business. Clean two or three feet of gutter, climb down, move the ladder. Repeat. Finally, there’s just that last foot or so to clean and you’re not about to move the ladder again. If you just lean…a…little…bit…further…
Scenario 2
It’s time to put the banners up for the fall festival at your agency. You haul out the A-frame ladder for this quick job and ask a coworker to stabilize it. The legs aren’t quite resting evenly on the ground — but you’ve got someone to steady it. No worries! You climb up slowly using three points of contact (score yourself some safety points!) and reach for that rafter to tack up the banner. Suddenly, someone calls your coworker. He releases his grip on the ladder to turn and respond and…
Scenario 3
You love the glossy look of freshly waxed floors in your living room and decide to bump it up a notch by hanging new curtains. You don’t have a stepladder, but that old extension ladder should do the trick. You lean it against the wall near the window, climb up, reach for the curtain rod…and feel the ladder begin to slip on the freshly waxed floor…
Scenario 4
You’re putting holiday decorations and lights on your house and just want to be done quickly because it’s cold outside. So you grab the well-worn wooden stepladder you’ve used for years. It squeaks and groans as you climb the rungs, and as your foot comes down on the fourth rung, you hear a sharp crack and…
Each of these scenarios demonstrates a leading cause of ladder-related injuries: Using a ladder incorrectly, using the wrong type of ladder, and incorrect ladder placement.
“Ladders are deceptively dangerous,” says Tim Jaskiewicz, PDRMA Risk Management Consultant. “They are so common and used so frequently that people don’t consider them a safety hazard.” In fact, they’re used — and misused — so often and in so many ways that the Ladder Association runs an annual photo contest titled “Idiots on Ladders.”
Still, ladder safety is no laughing matter. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 43 percent of fatal falls in the last decade have involved a ladder. That’s why this fall PDRMA reminds members to check out the resources below and follow best practices for all job tasks involving ladders.
PDRMA Resources:
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