Redesigning the Scaffold System to Enhance Our Workers' Safety
In 2013, a BLHI jobsite suffered a fall from a large mast-climbing scaffold system. Although personal fall arrest systems (PFAS) are not required while ascending/descending this type of system, BLHI addressed the issue by requiring the use of PFAS anytime elevated work is accessed by a vertical climb in excess of 12 feet.
This best practice has since become the rule on all BLHI jobsites. Since that incident, this has been an area where BLHI has gone above the federal requirements to provide for a safe workplace. However, over time we saw numerous struggles to comply due to scaffold design. Mast Climbing systems and other similar systems simply were not designed to accommodate PFAS.
In 2020, seeing this issue firsthand our team at the Anniston Federal Courthouse jobsite championed a brainstorming session with BLHI Safety, scaffold manufacturers, and industry fall protection experts. This resulted in BLHI and EZ Scaffold partnering to design, engineer, and modify those scaffold systems. As a result of this partnership with BLHI, EZ Scaffold is now deploying improved fall protection systems on all large mast-climbing scaffold systems.
Yet another example of BLHI setting (and raising) the bar with regard to protecting our workforce.
More on that below: