30.03.2011

Making do and taking risks

A reader in the UK was conducting a PASMA mobile tower training course and having completed the theory section broke for lunch. Only to spot two men working from a tower with a platform height of around four metres.

The tower had no guardrail, no toe boards, poor platform layout and does not even look level. In the words of our correspondent:
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Opposite a PASMA training centre - a live Death Wish

“While undertaking a PASMA course on our site and having done the theory side of the course. The delegates were breaking for dinner but came back into the class room commenting to me ‘you have got to see this mate’.”

“After taking the photos I shouted over to the men and one came round to see me. Thinking they were not trained I explained the merits of PASMA and training and proper safety etc…”

“The manager explained that they were all PASMA trained but had to get on with the job. ‘They at the office’ had only given them a tower with limited components and they had to get the job done.”

“I asked them if they liked life or are they mad. I also told them they were lucky that the HSE were not on site or they would be in trouble etc... General comments followed and he wanted to know what I was going to do with the photos. I said look at Vertikal and you might find yourself in the death wish section.”

“He walked away and climbed back up onto the unguarded platform.”
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No guardrails are just the start

The joke is that they have all the PPE gear – fluorescent suits, work boots and hard hats – all the boxes ticked but the most important item totally disregarded. One has to wonder if they bothered to close off the road they are working from?

Vertikal Comment

It never ceases to amaze us how cavalier some people can be..even when they know better. There is one thing someone in their home making do with something inadequate to get a short job done on the spur of the moment. Let the man who has never done so cast the first stone. However in this case they are at work and have taken to time to obtain some relevant equipment but been too sloppy to make sure that it was right.

If one of these men slipped and impaled himself on one of the spigots it is not going to be his colleague who has to clean up the mess and possibly lose sleep with the trauma involved.

Under new UK Health & Safety Executive procedures companies like this will be the main targets for prosecutions and fines by the HSE and rightly so.