The crucial role of rescue assessments, planning, and preparedness rescue is an important concern in fall protection because employers have a very specific legal duty to rescue employees should they fall on the job. Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations state:
"The employer shall provide for prompt rescue of employees in the event of a fall or shall assure that employees are able to rescue themselves."
We emphasize the word “prompt” because hanging in a harness is not something the human body can tolerate for very long. Employers must be prepared to retrieve a fallen worker within minutes. In our opinion, there should be a written and well understood rescue plan for every instance when employees use active fall protection methods. Gravitec offers site-specific rescue assessments to our clients. We begin by examining the work tasks and the job site. We then generate feasible rescue options and discuss them with the employer’s safety and management teams. Next we write rescue plans that are practical and that comply with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's requirements for a prompt rescue. We usually end up training employees about how to safely use the chosen rescue plan.
Key Issues in Rescue Planning
One of the most important questions in designing a rescue plan is whether the employer can rely upon emergency service providers like fire departments. This is sometimes feasible in urban and suburban areas. However, high-angle rescue skills are sometimes limited in fire departments. Often the most significant problem, especially in rural areas, is response time. More and more employers are realizing that basic rescue services must be performed in-house to be “prompt.” As a result, more employers are training workers in basic rescue methods that can be employed on-site immediately.
If rescues must be performed in-house, the employer next faces the challenge of determining how the rescue is best performed. Traditionally, high-angle rescuers are trained to an advanced level in knot tying, pulley design, equalizing anchor systems, and descent control methods.
Gravitec believes that these traditional skills are often too complicated and inappropriate for most work environments. Training workers and maintaining their skills with these traditional methods can be very time consuming. However, since employers are able to predict where rescues occur, they need not be as highly-trained as emergency service providers. Since rescue in the work environment is predictable, rescue equipment and basic skills can be taught differently than the traditional methods.
Applying Our Experience to Your Organization's Challenges
For our clients who want to adopt a planned approach to rescue, Gravitec’s consultants strive for techniques that are easily taught and retained. Gravitec then provides durable written rescue plans that organizations can use to train anyone who works at the site. When it comes to protecting workers, there are few components that are as important as rescue planning and preparedness.
Site-Specific Rescue Assessment
Gravitec offers site-specific rescue assessments to our clients.
A Gravitec instructor inspecting a rescue system on a dam in Central Washington State.
