I thought this was important enough to cross-post it accross the above
addresses.... This is from the Tower-Pro list
-B-
--
Bob Moldashel
Lakeland Communications, Inc.
Broadband Deployment Group
1350 Lincoln Avenue
Holbrook, New York 11741 USA
800-479-9195 Toll Free US & Canada
631-585-5558 Fax
516-551-1131 Cell
--- Begin Message ---
Group,
A tower climber for Sting Communications, Michael Sellers, 25, of
Lebanon PA, died yesterday after falling from a tower approximately
90'. The link to the article in the local newspaper can be found here:
http://www.altoonamirror.com/articles.asp?articleID=1366
The link to a tv report with a picture of the tower is here:
http://www.wjactv.com/news/9168284/detail.html
Sting communications is a wireless internet company that primarily
provides point to point links using Alvarion equipment.
Apparently someone at the scene gave a statement that their were no
places to tie off on the tower until the climber was positioned where
he was going to be working. The tower is a Rohn SSV tower. Obviously
we have the means in this industry to stay 100% on a Rohn tower. I
have run into Sting's 2 man tower crews several times in Central PA.
The first time I was at the top of a tower owned by the company I was
employed by swapping out an antenna. Two climbers from Sting came up
to install an Alvarion radio and panel. They free climbed up the
tower (which had a safety cable installed) in tennis shoes without
hardhats. They were wearing full body harnesses with a single leg
lanyard on the dorsal attatchment point, but the lanyard was being
used to carry the radio and panel antenna. They had no positioning
lanyards, only a couple of large carabiners they would attatch to one
of their side D rings or the other, never both at the same time. I
Couldn't believe what I saw. After getting them back to the ground I
questioned them about safety equipment, and their training. I quickly
learned that these guys had never been properly trained in safe
climbing techniques or OSHA regulations. They had never even really
worked around other tower crews, I was the first experienced tower
tech they had even spoken with. (this was about 2 years ago) I gave
them a rundown on OSHA regs, showed them the equipment I used (SALA
EXOFIT XP Double Leg Lanyard, Positioning Lanyards, Cable Grabs, etc.)
I also gave them a Midwest Unlimited catalog and circled all of
the "must have" safety equipment, then gave them ComTrain's web
address. My GM then called their supervisor and explained our
policies, general tower climbing policies, and that they would not be
allowed to work on the company's towers unless they complied.
I know of two falls from towers in the past two weeks. One happened
at 220' when an experienced well-trained climber slipped off a peg as
he was repositioning. He works for an extremely large tower company
where safety is truly part of the culture. He fell into his fall
arrest and went home that night with no injuries.
I think you can draw your own conclusions to what happened yesterday.
My condolences to Mr. Seller's family and loved ones.
Chris Mika
President,
Novotech Construction, Inc.
Mobile (814)935-5401
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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