From the course: Occupational Safety and Health: Slips, Trips, and Falls

Working with ladders

- Many people use ladders at some point in time, whether it's at work or at home. They're great for helping us reach higher places. And there are many different types of ladders. Stepladders, extension ladders, step stools and combination ladders that can be configured to work for many different things. There are a lot of different aspects to using a ladder safely, and this is not going to be a comprehensive ladder safety course for people who work with ladders every day. However, I do want to talk about them here in terms of what you need to do to prevent yourself from falling off of a ladder. At the beginning of this course, I talked about short falls and the severe injuries that they can cause. And I talked about not being able to control your body position when you fall. Falling off of a ladder is a perfect example. At first look, again you might say, "Come on, I can work on a ladder without getting hurt". But I'm here to tell you that people get hurt falling off of ladders everyday. It happens in the retail industry when store clerks are stocking shelves or putting up displays. It happens to volunteers who are up on ladders putting up signs and banners. And it happens on construction sites to workers who use ladders all the time. In fact, one of the fatalities that I've had to investigate happened when a worker leaned over too far on a ladder from only about seven feet up. He lost his balance, slipped, fell, and landed on his head on the concrete floor. Some of the best ways to stay safe on a ladder is to make sure it's being used properly that it's the best tool for the job and that you get appropriate ladder safety training, specific to your use. Now there are some basics that always apply. Like again, making sure the ladder is being used for what it was made for. I'll give you an example. Folding step ladders are not supposed to be used in the folded position, leaned up against a building. Some other basic practices that are meant to keep you safe from falling off of a ladder include things like making sure the ladder is on a good solid surface and making sure it's stable and secure. You need to always maintain three points of contact. Never climb too far up on the ladder and don't lean over too far to one side. Let's look at each of these. Maintaining three points of contact means that between your two hands and your two feet, three of them should be on the ladder at all times. If you're trying to carry tools or materials up the ladder in one hand, you cannot maintain three points of contact. You also really can't maintain three points of contact. if you're facing away from the ladder. Most ladders are not designed for you to stand on the top rung. Once you climb to the point of not having any handrails to hang onto, your chances of losing your balance increase substantially. So many instructions, rules and workplace regulations will tell you not to climb above the top two or three rungs. And many regulations require extension ladders to extend three feet or one meter above the upper landing if you're using it to reach an upper level. Now I know there's some exceptions like ladders with hand rail extensions or step stools with extended platform areas. And that's why you need to make sure to read all the instructions for your ladder and get ladder training that's specific to what you're doing. Not leaning too far to the side on a ladder is extremely important. And it's one of the safety violations that I see far too often. You even see it when people are putting up holiday lights at home. You need to reach just a little bit farther to finish the job so you start to lean and reach and all of a sudden you've shifted your body weight too far off the ladder. You can't hang on and off you go. You can really get seriously injured doing this. So remember the saying that safety trainers like to use of keep your belt buckle between the ladder uprights. This just means don't lean so far over that your belt buckle or the center of your body goes past the edge of that ladder.

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