Scissors Lift Fatalities Prompt OSHA Safety Alert

Not gettin' me up there....

There is one thing.

Our company has safety requirements when using the scissors/man lift. And that is you always have to attached your fall protection lanyard to the scissors or man lift.

And our outside contractors have to follow these rules also. We get union contractors in and informed them of the requirements. They never heard about connecting it to the lift, (they (union members) said that their safety training say never to do that, but to connect it to you work place, when in place.

I mentioned it to our safety director,... but the response is basically, "don't bother me I'm too busy"

did a quick internet search came up with nothing, does anyone know the proceedure?

If the lift falls over I wouldn't want to be attached to it, but rather to a secure permanent anchor independent of the lift....but additionally when in working position I would anchor the top of the scissor lift for lateral support...but OSHA calls the shots....

..."In regards to your specific question, when working from an elevated scissors lift (ANSI A92.6 series), a worker need only be protected from falling by a properly designed and maintained guardrail system. However, if the guardrail system is less than adequate, or the worker leaves the safety of the work platform, an additional fall protection device would be required. The general scaffolding fall protection provision found in 1926.451(g)(1)(vii) reads in part, "[f]or all scaffolds not otherwise specified in this section, each employee shall be protected by the use of personal fall arrest systems or guardrails systems." "...

https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=interpretations&p_id=22611

http://www.oshatraining.com/Fall-Protection-Requirements-for-Aerial-Lifts.php

That right. probably why our company's EHS director didn't want to deal with it.

And when your lowering the lift and forget to unhook yourself from the building structure and transfer to the lift. I'm sure one can stop in time.

Off topic, I have seen safety videos where the worker secured himself to a large pipe that he was cutting through. When he cut through, there was tension in the pipe and it sprung about 2 feet, lifted the guy right out of the lift or what every he was standing on, and left him dangling.

An another actual incident, that happen in our area at a cheese plant, a worker working about 25' up in the air and he secured his lanyard to the building which should have saved his life when he fell, but his lanyard was 30'

"I have seen safety videos where the worker secured himself to a large pipe that he was cutting through."

When your safety rig looks like this:

It's time to stop and rethink safety.

http://www.oshatraining.com/Fall-Protection-Requirements-for-Aerial-Lifts.php

"Then why does OSHA require us to tie off in an aerial lift work platform that is already equipped with standard guardrails for fall protection? Two words; body restraint. Since the OSHA standards fail to explain why we must tie off, perhaps it would help if I make an attempt to explain why it is necessary. Anyone who has ever been standing in the platform of an extensible or articulating boom-lift that was driven over a bumpy surface or had the lifting control quickly shifted will tell you that these actions can cause the work platform to severely "bounce", especially when the boom is positioned horizontally away from the machine base. And this bouncing action can in some cases cause the worker to be catapulted out of the work platform and fall to the ground below. To see how this can happen, you may want to view this short video sent to me by Mike Trumbature at Industrial Equipment Company in Houston."

"To prevent this, the worker must wear a safety belt (yes, a body belt is still allowed for body restraint systems, just not for fall arrest systems) or full-body harness that is equipped with a short lanyard attached to the work platform (the manufacturers usually provide a designated tie-off point somewhere in the work platform), with it being imperative that the lanyard be of a length short enough to prevent the person from being ejected from the basket. In other words, this arrangement keeps you from being thrown out of the work platform, as opposed to catching you if for some reason you did fall out."

Milo

Driving while extended?...not with me in the basket....

I rented 90ft Giraffe (all terrain man lift) last February, It was below Zero when they delivered it, and they had a hard time keeping it running, forgot to att the cold weather additive to the diesel fuel). We added it, but had him drive it in the building to stay warm, and easier started for the next morning when we needed it. They had to cross a 6" wide by 2" high curb to enter the door. And with the man lift fully retracted, the operator still had one hell of a ride.

I saw that one.

"...Idiots gotta do idiotic things..."

Where to tie off to when using a high lift work platform has and always will be a point of contention and debate.

One of the best examples I had was from a guy who was giving a 40 hour OSHA class I had to take for a work a few years ago.

He told us about two workplace fatalities he had to investigate a year or so before in one week where both involved high lift units. One guy followed the recommended OSHA procedure for whatever they were doing and tied off to the structure he was working on. Somehow something happened to knock the whole thing down and it took the guy with it.

The next one was where a guy was working and was tethered to the lift and somehow someone managed to lose control of a larger machine and hit the lift and knock it over thus killing the guy.

In his opinion had either guy been tethered to the opposite thing or had been untethered all together he said he honestly believed that both would have lived.

So given that his answer to tethering off is yes you should and if asked to what according to OSHA yes you should. To what exactly? Well if whatever saves your life that was the right choice if not someone gets wrote up and fined.

A while back, our county police force just receive (2) new motorcycles.

For a public service, they were doing safety classes on the proper and age handling of the motorcycle.

the classes were cancel 10 seconds into the course, when the police officer attempted to dismount the bike, he couldn't lift his leg up high enough and he lost his balance and broke his leg.

In our company we have implemented a requirement that there will always be two people during scissors lift or cherry picker operations. The person working in the cage must always have a safety observer on the ground.

No movement in the fully extended position is allowed either.

Suppliers and contractors find it annoying and wasteful - we have not had an incident yet at our facility.