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The "Gaps Analysis to NIOSH", a "Review of the scientific literature on injuries
from falls from (and with) ladders" of the Advanced
Technologies and Laboratories, Inc. in Germantown, Maryland,
in the USA. ATL, confirms
many safety aspects in handling ladders :
-
complacency about danger
-
fatalities increase with age
-
basic importance of dizziness and vertigo
-
accessories are not effective
Furthermore the
report confirms the gap in scientific research on accidents
with portable ladders - including the difficulty of any sort
of holistic approach and scientific analysis.
We need to fully
understand the reasons behind this lack of insight as a
premise to start searching new ways to reduce ladder accidents.
So let me try to submit you some observations and suggestions.
1. first of all,
we don't know the real number of (fatal) accidents involving
portable ladders; we can assume that most ladder accidents are
not reported because:
-
there is no witness
-
describing an
accident is not easy (a posteriori, nobody knows if the
broken ladder is one of the causes or the result of an
accident)
-
the persons involved in ladder accidents fear bad
reputation or simply remove/refuse the memory of crucial/shocking
situations
2. Normally
reports on ladder accidents are not real-time; accidents are
reported by people which had suffered the ladder accident, and
often are still shocked. Scientific research needs real time
observation or simulation under laboratory conditions; both
are very expensive projects, even if a standard photographic
equipment availability in certain workplaces could help.
3. Scientific
research of ladder accidents under real and lab conditions
seems an easy task, as far as the “ladders” and “ambient
conditions” are considered: both are completely known and
easily described. This is not so when we consider the
“vertigo” and “dizziness” variables: the person on the
ladder itself is a variable, and not a well known one.
Nonetheless, it is probably a more important variable than the
“ladder” and "ambient conditions” for the sake of
understanding the dynamics of ladder accidents.
See e.g. Barrett
C. Miller, who wrote in 1998:
"To stand,
walk, or climb without falling, we must maintain our center of
mass over and within a base area. When someone is standing
erect, the base can be considered the normal footprint. The
shape, size, and position of the base changes depending on the
pattern of movement and the activity. When walking, we
constantly readjust our body segments over our base to
maintain stability. The brain, vision, body condition, and the
nature of the contact with the surface all contribute to the
sensitive balance required to maintain walking stability. If a
foot slips or is mis-positioned, the center of gravity shifts
outside the base area. When this happens, we shift our body
parts in an attempt to regain equilibrium. If the center of
mass cannot be shifted back over the base area, we fall.”
see also the
results stemming from a new medical research branch called
"Neurootology":
The human beings
are connected with their environment through their sense
organs. Ears, eyes, nose and tongue are peripherical sensorial
organs, that on being excited by an environmental stimulus,
are able of registering said information and transferring same
to the brain superior centers. An answer to these stimuli is
produced by the brain or central computer. NEUROOTOLOGY is the
branch of medicine devoted to studying the aforementioned
process
4. So scientific
research of ladder accidents is expensive because it needs:
-
permanent
observation of working on ladders under different ambient
conditions
-
permanent
observation of working on ladders with different operators
-
permanent
observation of working on different types of ladders
-
clinical control
of operators
-
development of
kinetic models for different types of ladders and ambient
conditions in order to reproduce fatal situations; without
such models any effort in scientific research would remain
uncontrollable and spoiled of practical results.
5. We feel that
ladder manufacturers and assurance companies are not inclined
to promote scientific research of ladder accidents: “cost”
seems only one of the reasons.
6. Ladders are low
cost volume products, easy to handle, used in millions of
different situations and jobs, perceived by the general public
as a completely understood object and that makes it hard to
find a reason to fund research of substantial innovations.
Let me say off
records that the functionality and technical structure of
ladders have not changed in thousands of years, and ladder
accidents like atavistic memories seem to belong to one of the
best protected taboo-zones of our human societies.
Nevertheless we
think there is a way out, and the solution could be a policy
encompassing:
-
Permanent,
standardized television monitoring of ladder works (camera
fixed on bottom ladder stile**), in preparation and
support of forthcoming
-
Scientific
research of ladder accidents
-
which should be
installed and financed by large companies, whose workers
use thousands of ladders, and which consequently have a
-
strong interest in
reducing costly risks and failures in handling ladders
***The CAMWEAR
system from Deja View, Inc. http://www.mydejaview.com
enables
users to record their visual experiences after the fact by
buffering the input to a head-mounted camera for 30 seconds
before the record button is hit. A nickel-sized video camera
that can be clipped onto glasses or shirt collars feeds a
continuous video stream into a pager-sized or "hip-pack"
recording unit that is worn on the belt or waistband. When the
user hits the record button, the previous 30 seconds seen by
the camera are stored in flash memory. The recorder can hold
up to 4 hours of recorded video, which can then be transferred
to a PC or Mac through a USB cable or flash memory reader.
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