In the many years that we’ve been reducing hazards for building personnel here at ECEX, one of the most common problems we address for our customers is the unprotected edge.
Yes, whilst this covers the obvious fall risks like a 12 storey building with open roof edges and a rather significant drop to ground level, we often find ourselves dealing with less commonly considered hazards. Do you have edge protection to prevent a fall from the top of your water tank to the floor? Mezzanine to floor? Loading dock to floor?
Since the introduction of the Work at Height Regulations 2005, the old adage “it is not a problem up to two metres” is no longer relevant.
HSE analysis identified significant risk to personnel when falling from relatively low heights and lets face it, you take a lot of care when up on a roof where the threat is obvious, but necessarily as much when you’re not so high up?
Sadly, the end result may well be the same; serious injury or even death.
Falls from open edges: Example one.
A worker died following a fall from machinery. He was working alone at night cleaning parts of the plant and there was no protection against falling. He was found with head injuries the following morning and died the next day.
(Courtesy of HSE)
Falls from open edges: Example two.
A food production operative fell into a rotating drum on a production line and broke both wrists and one leg. She was attempting to clean the machine. Working on top of the machine was common practice due to the absence of a safe system of work for adequately cleaning the machine. The top of the machine did not represent a safe working platform and there were no provisions to prevent falls from height. The employer was fined £18,000.
(Courtesy of HSE)
There you have it, a few examples of significant consequences as a result of what may have been trivial risks. Have you accounted for all of the fall risks on your site? It might be time to double-check.
For further examples please see:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/falls/casestudies/openedges.htm
For the ecex webpage and case studies please see
:http://www.ecex.co.uk/roofedge.asp
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