Ladder & Step Stool Safety for Everyone

Dave Francis, National Safety Director, Little Giant Ladders Author

11/05/2018 Added

316 Plays

Description

Everyone who uses, intends to us, or selects and purchases a ladder or step stool will find this colloquium particularly helpful.

Searchable Transcript

Search:

[00:00:09.700]On behalf of Environmental Health and Safety
[00:00:12.000]and the Office of Research and Economic Development,
[00:00:14.500]I'd like to welcome you to today's safety colloquium.
[00:00:19.220]These series of colloquia are offered
[00:00:23.150]in recognition of the commitment
[00:00:24.930]by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
[00:00:27.700]to assure a safe and healthy environment
[00:00:30.080]for teaching and research and all the ancillary things
[00:00:34.290]that go along underneath and behind the scenes.
[00:00:38.360]There are a couple housekeeping items.
[00:00:40.500]I see everybody's gotten refreshments, so that's good.
[00:00:43.540]I will be passing around a sign-in sheet.
[00:00:46.150]If you'll please print your name, department, and an email,
[00:00:50.230]that email will be used to register you
[00:00:52.850]to receive the EHS safety listerv,
[00:00:55.750]which is a very short email once a month
[00:00:58.750]on a variety of topics.
[00:01:01.370]And afterward, we would appreciate if
[00:01:03.650]you would take a couple minutes to complete the survey.
[00:01:07.400]I see that you've all picked that up, so thank you.
[00:01:09.780]And also, if you have any idea for future colloquia,
[00:01:13.810]that would be greatly appreciated.
[00:01:16.200]We like to be responsive to your needs.
[00:01:20.410]Today's topic is Ladder and Step Stool Safety for Everyone.
[00:01:24.720]David (Dave) Francis has been in the ladder business
[00:01:29.230]for over 30 years.
[00:01:31.500]As a college student, he cleaned the offices of
[00:01:34.260]Little Giant Ladder Systems at night
[00:01:36.480]and he's stayed there ever since.
[00:01:39.100]Working his way up the ladder, pun intended,
[00:01:42.920]Dave became the director of R&D and holds five US patents
[00:01:46.960]for improvements in ladder design.
[00:01:49.380]He is now the national safety director
[00:01:52.090]with the sole purpose of preventing ladder accidents
[00:01:55.200]and hopefully saving lives
[00:01:57.060]by promoting ladder safety training
[00:01:59.330]and innovation in safe ladder design.
[00:02:02.940]His goal is the same as yours, and everyone here,
[00:02:07.130]as well as the university:
[00:02:08.760]get everyone home to their families at the end of the day.
[00:02:12.750]And if any of you belong to another organization or group
[00:02:15.740]that might be interested in the free ladder safety training,
[00:02:18.760]you can contact Dave, dave@ladders.com, that's on the video.
[00:02:23.660]You can get his phone number after the presentation
[00:02:26.410]or at www.littlegiantladders.com.
[00:02:31.820]So Dave, welcome to UNL.
[00:02:33.901]Thank you.
[00:02:37.500]Thank you for coming.
[00:02:40.089]Let me get this going right.
[00:02:44.290]Of course, we had it working a second ago.
[00:02:51.287]Oh. (laughing)
[00:02:56.330]We are frozen, sorry.
[00:02:59.870]Technical difficulties.
[00:03:05.400]Not a good presentation unless it, there we go.
[00:03:12.270]I have been in the ladder business since 1982,
[00:03:15.400]so since before some of you were born
[00:03:18.200]and way after some of you.
[00:03:21.870]I have a weird job.
[00:03:23.010]I go around the country and I speak about ladder safety
[00:03:26.290]and talk about a need for change.
[00:03:28.690]So I'm kind of, I work for Little Giant Ladder,
[00:03:33.060]but I represent an organization called
[00:03:35.640]the American Ladder Institute,
[00:03:37.410]which is an industry institute, organization,
[00:03:42.060]that promotes ladder safety and change.
[00:03:45.130]Some of these are just some of the
[00:03:46.930]not how-to pictures but of what not to do.
[00:03:51.300]This is why we talk about ladder safety.
[00:03:54.060]These are things that get sent to me
[00:03:56.810]from time to time, after I do presentations.
[00:04:00.130]I actually have about 700 of these crazy pictures.
[00:04:07.090]This guy, (students laughing)
[00:04:09.130]this is one of those, you know,
[00:04:12.200]I need to be two feet off the ground
[00:04:13.950]or a foot off the ground and I've got buckets
[00:04:16.920]and I've got baling wire, so it seems to be a great idea
[00:04:21.630]until the baling wire doesn't work
[00:04:24.520]and then you're doing something with his ankles and knees.
[00:04:30.070]If you'll notice, though, a lot of these pictures are guys.
[00:04:34.552]That's not by accident.
[00:04:37.410]It does seem to be that we think we can
[00:04:39.250]do anything with a tool and get away with it.
[00:04:43.390]A lot of it is learned behavior.
[00:04:44.990]We've done it since we were little kids on playgrounds
[00:04:47.900]and so this is why women live longer, right?
[00:04:52.000]Because these are things that we do.
[00:04:59.210]We wanted to talk a little bit about step stools today,
[00:05:02.210]as well, because you're in a building
[00:05:04.930]that's filled with chairs and tables.
[00:05:08.140]And I think a lot of us have had that experience at home
[00:05:11.000]where we don't wanna go out in the garage
[00:05:13.410]and get Grandpa's folding ladder out and bring it in
[00:05:17.340]and so we just grab the bar stool.
[00:05:19.530]Hopefully it's not the spinning type of stool.
[00:05:23.730]And then my own personal experience,
[00:05:25.530]you know, when your wife comes home
[00:05:27.350]and you're standing on the countertops
[00:05:29.410]fixing the light, in your work boots.
[00:05:32.830]It's not, you think you're doing a good thing,
[00:05:35.410]but not so much.
[00:05:39.100]I'll say this a couple of times during my presentation today
[00:05:43.940]creativity in the workplace is the enemy of safety.
[00:05:47.980]It's when people get creative, cut corners,
[00:05:51.220]do their own setups, things that haven't been tested,
[00:05:57.770]that we find that we get the injuries.
[00:06:01.000]If you follow the simple, basic rules of ladder safety,
[00:06:03.800]and the ladder's in good condition,
[00:06:06.080]the ladder will almost never be the cause of the accident.
[00:06:08.490]It will almost always be preventable,
[00:06:10.500]it'll almost always be operator error.
[00:06:14.390]The ladders that every company in the world manufactures
[00:06:17.640]are built at a four-to-one safety ratio.
[00:06:20.260]So if you had a 250-pound-rated ladder,
[00:06:24.290]it's tested to hold 1000 pounds.
[00:06:27.430]So if you're saying, I'm just standing there on my ladder,
[00:06:30.240]minding my own business, and the ladder broke underneath me
[00:06:33.010]and caused me to fall, that's not happened.
[00:06:36.090]What happened was, you overreached,
[00:06:39.600]you knocked the ladder over in the fall,
[00:06:41.650]and you landed on the ladder.
[00:06:43.170]It takes about 3000 pounds of force
[00:06:46.260]to damage the side rails or the rungs of anybody's ladder.
[00:06:49.810]So how does a 200 pound person
[00:06:52.050]generate 3000 pounds of force?
[00:06:55.330]Six feet of dropping.
[00:06:58.070]So the only way that ladder can be damaged
[00:07:00.480]is to pick it up, big time wrestling move,
[00:07:02.900]and slam it against something,
[00:07:04.210]or tip it over and fall on it.
[00:07:07.420]A lot of times in accident investigations,
[00:07:09.530]I'll ask the person injured, I'll say,
[00:07:12.260]you have a bruise four inches wide on your body,
[00:07:16.500]either on your chest or on your hip.
[00:07:18.200]Where is it?
[00:07:19.033]And they go, oh yeah, it's right here across my ribcage.
[00:07:21.330]How did you know I had that?
[00:07:22.850]Well, the only way to generate enough force
[00:07:24.630]to smash the ladder like it is
[00:07:26.600]is for you to fall from six feet and land on it.
[00:07:30.700]So what we say is, for a ladder in new
[00:07:35.370]or like new condition, used properly,
[00:07:40.410]this was never the intended use of any of these ladders.
[00:07:44.730]This is all the creativity that I'm talking about
[00:07:47.590]that causes accidents.
[00:07:49.730]What we're trying to prevent is falls.
[00:07:54.180]You might not think that you're a heavy ladder user,
[00:07:57.290]but my guess is, if you talk to your insurance people,
[00:08:01.050]falls, either slip and fall or fall from height,
[00:08:04.040]trip and falls, is gonna be close to the top
[00:08:07.000]of your insurance out-pay here at the university.
[00:08:10.520]Almost every school that I speak at,
[00:08:13.330]trip and fall or fall from height are number one
[00:08:17.990]or number two on their accident and injury list.
[00:08:22.520]So it's something that you deal with
[00:08:26.132]and a lot of times we deal with
[00:08:27.330]without even thinking about it.
[00:08:29.210]Because instead of using a ladder,
[00:08:31.250]we use the chairs and the tables
[00:08:33.330]that are so readily available.
[00:08:36.280]A few months ago, I was at the Department of Labor
[00:08:39.060]for a round table with all of the
[00:08:42.950]subcontractor organizations from the construction industry.
[00:08:48.150]And the IT guy was having a problem with the projector
[00:08:53.700]and it was a horseshoe-type seating
[00:08:56.700]with probably 70 industry safety heads.
[00:09:01.840]And the IT guy did this.
[00:09:05.410]And right up the, you know, right up the chair.
[00:09:09.360]And everybody, you know, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
[00:09:13.300]you know, and sent him off to get a ladder.
[00:09:15.460]Unfortunately, Department of Labor
[00:09:17.700]isn't as up to speed as you'd think they were.
[00:09:20.170]He went and got a 1930s wood stepladder
[00:09:25.270]that looked like it was handed down
[00:09:27.950]from early Anasazi Indians, to bring in.
[00:09:34.090]So that's why we talk about ladder safety.
[00:09:38.320]In the industry, we're trying to promote
[00:09:42.440]two different solutions.
[00:09:44.870]One is improved ladder safety training.
[00:09:49.200]Make you aware of the statistics, of the danger,
[00:09:52.250]give you some easy, basic rules of ladder safety to follow.
[00:09:57.130]Choose the right ladder for the job, inspect it properly,
[00:10:00.710]set it up properly, climb it properly.
[00:10:04.090]Four basic principles that we want everyone to understand.
[00:10:09.300]And so as an industry, all the ladder companies
[00:10:15.530]that you might be familiar with,
[00:10:16.810]Werner, Louisville, Little Giant,
[00:10:19.240]they're all members of this organization
[00:10:21.500]called the American Ladder Institute.
[00:10:24.470]Now, if you Google, we go by ALI, American Ladder Institute.
[00:10:29.240]If you google ALI, you get a lot of
[00:10:32.680]websites about Mohammed Ali.
[00:10:35.020]He was very popular.
[00:10:36.560]Us, not so much.
[00:10:37.800]So you have to type out the whole thing.
[00:10:41.690]But we've been around for about 40 years
[00:10:43.750]and we've been trying to promote ladder safety
[00:10:46.980]all that time.
[00:10:48.580]Ladders, falls, is the leading cause of
[00:10:53.150]injury and fatality in construction
[00:10:55.030]and in a lot of other industries.
[00:10:56.750]And we want to change that.
[00:10:57.980]We don't want to be in an industry
[00:11:01.460]that actually hurts people and kills people.
[00:11:03.551]We wanna change those numbers.
[00:11:06.150]So we've provided a free online training course.
[00:11:11.930]We developed it with online educators.
[00:11:14.920]It provides a pre-test that tells you
[00:11:17.200]what we want you to learn, it shows you a video
[00:11:19.800]that teaches you what we want you to learn,
[00:11:21.600]and then a post-test to make sure that
[00:11:23.620]you learned what we wanted you to learn.
[00:11:26.100]And if you answer it wrong, it'll kick you back
[00:11:29.000]and teach it to you again.
[00:11:31.650]It's not so much about getting the good score
[00:11:34.310]as it is learning the information
[00:11:36.240]that we want you to learn from it.
[00:11:38.220]It's a free, Spanish and English.
[00:11:40.970]Anything that'll attach to the internet
[00:11:42.700]will go to this website.
[00:11:44.070]And it'll give you a permanent record of
[00:11:46.090]who in your department took the training,
[00:11:47.810]what they scored, how long they took the video.
[00:11:49.870]So it's a pretty robust website.
[00:11:53.570]We also sponsor Ladder Safety Month.
[00:11:57.240]It's every March, and this last March was our second year.
[00:12:02.120]So this coming March will be our third.
[00:12:04.870]We've worked out a lot of the bugs,
[00:12:06.520]we've gotten some retail sponsors,
[00:12:10.160]Lowes, Granger, Amazon, are all sponsoring the event,
[00:12:15.810]trying to get the word not only to industry associations
[00:12:20.600]but also to the DIY homeowner.
[00:12:23.640]Because we see, statistically,
[00:12:26.770]we have a lot of deaths and injuries in industry,
[00:12:30.100]but when we include the homeowner, you know,
[00:12:34.410]the guy who wants to watch the football game,
[00:12:36.710]but he has to do that one chore,
[00:12:39.180]and he's gonna take some risks,
[00:12:40.970]that really skyrockets the statistics.
[00:12:45.380]So we wanna get that message to everybody.
[00:12:49.380]This is why we do what we do as far as training.
[00:12:53.890]Not that ladders are dangerous in and of themselves,
[00:12:58.190]it's that ladders are so basic and so simple
[00:13:01.170]that they can be easily misused and often are.
[00:13:05.450]This is not the approved way to work in a staircase.
[00:13:08.520]You don't have the big guy go down
[00:13:10.180]and hold up the back of the staircase.
[00:13:11.590]There's actually solutions for that.
[00:13:14.450]This is my new favorite picture.
[00:13:16.581](audience laughing)
[00:13:18.289]I'm not quite sure how they got into this position.
[00:13:22.140]But if you notice, this gentleman is in his stocking feet
[00:13:24.980]so I think at some point he had the idea
[00:13:27.570]and took his shoes off,
[00:13:28.620]so he was gonna stand on the other guy,
[00:13:30.860]but it just didn't work out that way.
[00:13:33.590]This is not the intended use of anything in this picture.
[00:13:37.860]This is creativity that is the enemy of safety.
[00:13:42.160]This is my old favorite picture.
[00:13:44.280]I've used this picture for a decade now.
[00:13:48.630]This picture tells a lot of stories.
[00:13:51.060]And it wasn't until just about three months ago
[00:13:53.250]that somebody pointed something out in the picture
[00:13:55.300]that I had not even noticed before.
[00:13:59.050]The light that they are working on is on.
[00:14:02.610]I've shown the picture for eight years
[00:14:04.440]before somebody brought that up.
[00:14:06.190]So how much money?
[00:14:09.780]Three guys in the proper safety equipment,
[00:14:13.880]so they've been trained, they probably have
[00:14:15.810]the right ladder on the truck,
[00:14:17.270]they didn't want to go get it,
[00:14:18.990]they got creative, they decided to do this.
[00:14:21.780]So I'm paying three people to do one person's job.
[00:14:24.680]What happens if OSHA walks by in this situation?
[00:14:28.540]It's a lot of money, right?
[00:14:30.640]What happens if Larry, Curly, or Moe here slips
[00:14:36.180]and one or more of them is injured?
[00:14:40.680]Who's way ahead of me on my progression here?
[00:14:44.760]What about the lady?
[00:14:47.300]Right, somebody asked if she was wearing a neck brace
[00:14:49.420]or if that was her sweater.
[00:14:50.440]I was like, if she's got a neck brace on,
[00:14:53.230]she's already called that guy from late night TV, right?
[00:14:56.260]That's who we're really worried about
[00:14:58.200]is that attorney who says, one call, that's all,
[00:15:00.700]I'm gonna get you a million dollars
[00:15:02.430]if you get hurt on the job.
[00:15:04.640]So OSHA can ding you, the insurance bill will get you,
[00:15:09.910]but the guy who's really financially out there
[00:15:14.690]chasing down injuries are those attorneys.
[00:15:18.570]So, just do it right, take a few seconds to
[00:15:25.990]go get the right tool for the job, do the job right.
[00:15:29.289]Let's talk about the dollars.
[00:15:32.490]I go to a lot of safety meetings,
[00:15:34.470]I speak with a lot of safety professionals,
[00:15:37.620]and a lot of times we don't talk about the dollars
[00:15:39.950]because it's a little callus.
[00:15:42.250]We're talking about people, we're talking about their lives,
[00:15:45.350]real live families and injuries and fatalities.
[00:15:49.410]So we don't like associating that with a dollar figure.
[00:15:53.420]It's important to talk about
[00:15:54.930]and understand the dollar figure
[00:15:56.470]because you need to fund your safety program,
[00:16:00.150]and you need to have a budget,
[00:16:02.950]and everybody from the top down needs to understand
[00:16:07.270]the value of a safety program.
[00:16:09.380]This presentation in a different form
[00:16:12.460]was given at the Department of Labor last year.
[00:16:17.220]So we're using year-old numbers,
[00:16:20.190]but they're still, they're actually going up
[00:16:22.830]a little bit this year from last year.
[00:16:27.870]The average cost of an accident in the United States,
[00:16:30.290]and that's just coming from the workers' comp fund,
[00:16:32.790]62 billion dollars in nonfatal workplace accidents in 2016,
[00:16:39.090]2017, 62 billion dollars, over a billion dollars a week
[00:16:44.470]in nonfatal workplace accidents that they paid out.
[00:16:48.800]The dirty little secret is,
[00:16:50.600]ladder companies don't make as money much per year
[00:16:53.520]as the insurance companies pay out insuring ladders.
[00:16:57.940]We're in an upside-down industry.
[00:16:59.880]The insurance company pays out
[00:17:01.070]a lot more money in ladder claims
[00:17:03.370]than ladder companies make selling ladders.
[00:17:05.863]That 62 billion dollars, divided by all of the accidents,
[00:17:09.670]averages out to $38,000 an accident.
[00:17:14.800]I know in my head the breakdown of that 62 billion dollars.
[00:17:18.470]The number one cause is strains and sprains.
[00:17:21.270]Not because of the severity,
[00:17:23.140]but because of the number of incidents.
[00:17:25.940]So back strains, shoulder strains, leg strains,
[00:17:29.210]picking up things that are too heavy to be picked up, right?
[00:17:33.590]Number two is trip and fall or slip and fall.
[00:17:37.110]And number three is fall from heights.
[00:17:39.360]So those are the three top contributors
[00:17:44.020]to that 62 billion dollars, out of the number of accidents
[00:17:47.807]and the severity of accidents.
[00:17:52.040]So that represents the direct costs of an accident.
[00:17:59.320]OSHA, ASSE, National Safety Congress,
[00:18:04.620]all in the last few years have talked a lot about
[00:18:07.030]indirect expenses of safety or accidents.
[00:18:10.810]And they have projected that an indirect cost to an accident
[00:18:14.440]can be three to 10 times greater
[00:18:17.110]than the direct cost of the accident.
[00:18:19.620]Now, I'm gonna use the three times and just say
[00:18:24.760]if the average cost is $38,000,
[00:18:27.410]the indirect costs are gonna be
[00:18:28.740]over $100,000 at the lowest projection.
[00:18:31.740]What is an indirect cost?
[00:18:33.450]Indirect is, an accident happens in the workplace
[00:18:36.970]and everybody on that job stops, right?
[00:18:38.920]Everybody stops and they spend the rest of the day
[00:18:41.300]talking about their friend that got hurt.
[00:18:43.650]Nobody goes right back to work, not even for a few days,
[00:18:46.570]sometimes, at the same level.
[00:18:48.410]They have to replace that guy, they have to train him.
[00:18:51.440]Sorry if I say guy a lot.
[00:18:52.840]I talk to a lot of construction companies,
[00:18:54.730]so I hope nobody, I'll try and change that.
[00:19:00.510]You have four or five of your managers
[00:19:03.580]coming in to do a report,
[00:19:05.060]you have an increase in your premium,
[00:19:07.610]you've got that attorney who's gonna file a lawsuit
[00:19:11.040]to try and get somebody a million bucks.
[00:19:13.290]And it all adds up to over 200 billion dollars a year,
[00:19:18.800]OSHA projects, with indirect costs built in.
[00:19:22.930]Now, the difference between a direct cost
[00:19:24.527]and an indirect cost is,
[00:19:26.830]the direct cost is already budgeted for.
[00:19:29.410]It's paid for by your insurance and by your premiums
[00:19:32.150]and all of those things.
[00:19:33.440]Indirect costs comes out of your budget.
[00:19:36.720]Or out of your profit margin, if you're a small company.
[00:19:40.140]So the difference between a profitable year
[00:19:42.650]and a not profitable year is one or two accidents.
[00:19:46.740]Because you don't spend $100,000 by making $100,000, right?
[00:19:53.420]That's the terrible thing about
[00:19:56.500]growing up and learning about finances,
[00:19:58.520]that when you get a hundred bucks,
[00:19:59.810]you don't get to spend a hundred bucks.
[00:20:01.850]FICA takes some of it, and everybody else
[00:20:04.760]wants a piece of it.
[00:20:06.120]So as a company, most of the time you have,
[00:20:08.560]oh, maybe a five to 10% profit margin.
[00:20:11.760]I use 10% because I'm terrible at math and 10% is easy.
[00:20:16.440]I've gotta earn a million dollars to have $100,000
[00:20:22.700]to pay for those indirect costs.
[00:20:25.250]So I've gotta do a million dollars' worth of work cleanly
[00:20:29.910]to have $100,000 to pay for my indirect costs.
[00:20:33.510]So millions and millions of dollars in work
[00:20:37.500]are going towards the indirect costs of an accident.
[00:20:40.630]So it's projected that a good, robust safety program
[00:20:45.780]will make your company money, it won't cost money.
[00:20:49.450]In years past or decades past, when the economy got tight,
[00:20:53.050]the first department to get hacked
[00:20:54.600]was the safety department.
[00:20:57.100]They're just costing us money, anyhow.
[00:20:59.120]Now companies are realizing that
[00:21:00.700]the safety department is actually making them money
[00:21:03.510]by preventing these accidents.
[00:21:05.820]OSHA has a website called Safety Pays.
[00:21:07.780]You can go to that website and it'll actually calculate
[00:21:10.490]your total expenses, direct, indirect,
[00:21:13.990]and how much money you'd need to make to pay for that.
[00:21:17.470]And just because we're talking about ladders,
[00:21:22.410]ladder-related accidents are two to three times
[00:21:24.900]more expensive than the average.
[00:21:27.160]So if you're talking about a fall,
[00:21:29.090]you're talking about multiplying all of this
[00:21:30.880]by two or three times.
[00:21:31.900]So we're into the millions and millions of dollars
[00:21:33.980]when we talk about falls because falls involve impact.
[00:21:40.070]Now, we wanna do two things.
[00:21:43.420]We wanna train people how to do the right thing
[00:21:46.380]and then we wanna change the industry.
[00:21:49.210]I don't wanna single out anybody because of age,
[00:21:53.250]so we'll go with hair color, okay?
[00:21:54.980]So we'll go with the gentleman with the white hair.
[00:21:57.840]When you were a kid, what's the first family car
[00:22:01.640]that you remember?
[00:22:05.810]Two-door Thunderbird coupe.
[00:22:07.130]Two-door Thunderbird coupe.
[00:22:09.330]He's thinking, they didn't have cars when he was a kid.
[00:22:13.132](audience laughing) No, no.
[00:22:15.700]Who remembers riding in that window
[00:22:17.390]in the back of the car on the family vacation, right?
[00:22:20.750]Seat belts?
[00:22:21.750]No, there weren't seat belts, right, it was your mom's arm.
[00:22:24.780]Right, she stepped on the brakes, she put her arm like this.
[00:22:27.310]Right, that was the seat belt.
[00:22:28.880]Back then, they made the dash chrome and pointy.
[00:22:31.570]They didn't have air bags.
[00:22:34.690]My dad's Colonel Francis.
[00:22:36.330]When Colonel Francis wanted his five sons
[00:22:38.730]to be quiet in the back of the Buick, he brake-checked.
[00:22:41.760]Everybody remember break checks?
[00:22:43.350](audience murmuring)
[00:22:44.200]Everybody slams to the ground and calms down
[00:22:47.040]and gets back on the seat.
[00:22:50.080]Back then, we referred to it as parenting.
[00:22:52.359](audience laughing)
[00:22:53.192]And now we call it child abuse, right?
[00:22:55.840]So times have changed.
[00:22:58.510]So we can't just rely on old technology
[00:23:03.800]that we've had for hundreds of years.
[00:23:05.140]We need to improve, we need to get better.
[00:23:07.420]We use the car as an example.
[00:23:09.900]It has a lot of accidents, it has a lot of fatalities,
[00:23:13.230]but they've put a lot of safety measures in place
[00:23:16.060]to prevent those injuries and fatalities
[00:23:19.340]in case of accidents.
[00:23:20.270]So now we have air bags, side bags,
[00:23:24.200]leg bags, three-point harnesses, right?
[00:23:28.420]A lot of us grew up never wearing a seat belt
[00:23:31.510]or being brake-checked by our dads.
[00:23:33.630]So there's two prongs here.
[00:23:35.650]One is training, the other is change.
[00:23:38.600]We have to stop using Grandpa's ladder.
[00:23:42.960]So in training, I'm actually an advocate that
[00:23:46.010]we should never sell a four-foot stepladder.
[00:23:48.980]How high does OSHA say you can stand
[00:23:50.690]on a four-foot stepladder?
[00:23:52.540]Two feet.
[00:23:53.780]Why am I carrying twice as much ladder as I can use?
[00:23:58.090]Because I'm gonna misuse it, right?
[00:24:00.270]Nobody carries a four-foot stepladder
[00:24:01.810]to stand two feet off the ground.
[00:24:03.390]If they were gonna stand two feet off the ground
[00:24:04.930]they'd carry a step stool because it's lighter
[00:24:06.610]and it's easier to carry her and it's less expensive.
[00:24:09.940]They carry a four-foot stepladder
[00:24:11.240]because they didn't want to carry
[00:24:12.300]a six-foot or an eight-foot.
[00:24:14.350]They carried a four-foot because it's easy.
[00:24:18.520]Rarely does anybody have a four-foot ladder on their truck
[00:24:22.750]that the top rung and the top cap of the ladder isn't dirty
[00:24:25.460]and used more than the first and second rung.
[00:24:30.200]That's just the nature of the beast.
[00:24:32.490]Human nature is, I'm always gonna carry
[00:24:34.190]the lightest, easiest thing and try and make it work.
[00:24:38.420]So we choose the right ladder for the job.
[00:24:41.310]Sometimes choosing the right ladder for the job is just
[00:24:44.040]making sure you choose a ladder instead of something else.
[00:24:48.970]We don't want you just climbing up on any bit of furniture
[00:24:52.010]to go up and get the job done,
[00:24:54.120]especially in a situation here on campus
[00:24:56.370]where every single room you go into
[00:24:58.570]is full of chairs and desks
[00:25:00.200]that'll get you where you need to go.
[00:25:02.510]Those chairs and desks weren't designed to be stood on
[00:25:05.890]or as ladders, so stop, go get the right tool for the job
[00:25:11.120]and prevent that accident from happening.
[00:25:12.970]Now ladders, years ago, some of you might remember
[00:25:15.780]we had wood ladders.
[00:25:17.400]We don't make wood ladders anymore.
[00:25:19.260]You can get them on Etsy as decorations,
[00:25:22.530]to hold plants or things like that,
[00:25:26.090]but all the US wood manufacturers have gone out of business.
[00:25:32.020]I think Michigan Ladder was about the last one
[00:25:33.960]that still made wood ladders.
[00:25:35.850]Aluminum ladders had a short run in industry
[00:25:38.940]before somebody got sued because they got electrocuted
[00:25:42.350]or their worker got electrocuted.
[00:25:43.690]And so they switched to fiberglass ladders.
[00:25:48.050]In the United States,
[00:25:49.100]about 80% of the ladders used are fiberglass,
[00:25:52.480]not because fiberglass is a lighter or better material
[00:25:55.880]but just because fiberglass is a non-conductive material
[00:25:59.610]and the United States is a highly litigated society.
[00:26:02.900]So outside of the United States, it's exactly opposite.
[00:26:06.260]About 80% of the ladders they use are aluminum
[00:26:09.130]because it's lighter and stronger than fiberglass
[00:26:11.440]and it lasts longer.
[00:26:12.830]And they just don't stick their ladders into the wires.
[00:26:17.920]But here where we have lawsuits,
[00:26:21.210]we just push people to fiberglass
[00:26:24.660]because they're non-conductive.
[00:26:26.820]Now, we used to go from 200 to 300 pounds in the rating.
[00:26:29.720]In an industrial setting, you don't want it to be
[00:26:33.280]anything less than 250 pounds.
[00:26:36.320]And I'll tell you why, a couple of reasons why
[00:26:39.810]you don't wanna use these lower ratings,
[00:26:43.020]even if you're a smaller person.
[00:26:45.080]One, you don't weigh what it says you weigh
[00:26:48.410]on your driver's license.
[00:26:49.870]Everybody weighs a little bit more
[00:26:51.170]than we actually say we weigh.
[00:26:53.370]And nobody works on a ladder
[00:26:56.330]the same way they weigh themselves, right?
[00:26:58.760]Because that would be awkward.
[00:27:00.697](audience laughing)
[00:27:02.580]You've got about 10 pounds of clothes on
[00:27:06.170]when you're on your ladder, and then tools and gear
[00:27:11.050]and, you know, hardhat and whatever.
[00:27:14.980]So you can hit the 250 pound mark really quickly
[00:27:20.340]once you calculate everything
[00:27:22.310]that you're carrying up that ladder.
[00:27:24.150]The other thing is, is that ladders are communal in nature.
[00:27:27.540]Very rarely does somebody have a ladder
[00:27:29.670]and they're the only one to use it.
[00:27:31.120]What happens most of the time is, you get the ladder out,
[00:27:33.960]you set it, you go to do the job,
[00:27:36.320]you come back down to get a tool,
[00:27:37.610]and somebody walks by and takes your ladder.
[00:27:39.910]That guy was Bubba, Bubba weighs
[00:27:41.760]more than the 250-pound limit
[00:27:43.780]and he's over there using that ladder.
[00:27:45.290]So in industry, we just default to
[00:27:47.370]the biggest guy in the room, basically.
[00:27:49.760]And most industrial applications just use
[00:27:53.550]a 300 or 375 pound rated ladder.
[00:27:58.780]That's kind of the standard in the industry.
[00:28:01.160]So fiberglass, 300 pounds or better is the standard.
[00:28:06.200]Don't let your guys go down to the big box store
[00:28:08.670]and think they're doing you a favor
[00:28:10.420]by buying the type three, $39 A-frame ladder
[00:28:16.700]because it's a household product
[00:28:19.940]being used in a business application.
[00:28:22.650]It has no business being on a job site.
[00:28:25.720]They're not doing you any favors
[00:28:26.980]by buying those lightweight ladders.
[00:28:30.840]Now this one's a little bit of a gray area.
[00:28:34.020]We have said for years and trained for years,
[00:28:36.700]never take an A-frame ladder and close it
[00:28:38.790]and lean it against the wall.
[00:28:42.310]Just yesterday, Monday, at the National Safety Congress
[00:28:47.580]my company debuted an A-frame ladder
[00:28:50.290]that you can lean against the wall.
[00:28:52.440]Werner and Louisville have had one for about six months
[00:28:56.870]that they designed specifically
[00:28:58.790]to close and lean against the wall.
[00:29:01.460]The problem is, and this is where the gray comes in,
[00:29:05.200]is if you buy one of those A-frame ladders
[00:29:07.360]that's designed to close and lean against the wall,
[00:29:10.320]that doesn't mean all the old A-frame ladders
[00:29:12.460]are now okay to lean against the wall.
[00:29:15.780]They still aren't, but the new ones are.
[00:29:18.600]So you have to watch it a little more closely
[00:29:21.580]because chances are, you're not gonna
[00:29:23.220]throw away all your bad one, old ones,
[00:29:25.600]and buy all of the new ones.
[00:29:26.810]You're gonna still have old ones in the system
[00:29:29.740]that aren't designed to be used in this position.
[00:29:33.110]Extension ladders are meant to be
[00:29:34.590]leaned against something, never straight up and down.
[00:29:38.930]Some of you older participants will get the reference
[00:29:42.890]of the Menendez brothers, or the,
[00:29:45.060]what were they, not the Menendez.
[00:29:48.867]The Wallendas.
[00:29:49.700]There, Wallendas.
[00:29:51.170]Got me confused with the guys that killed their parents.
[00:29:53.687](audience laughing)
[00:29:54.910]Whoa, yeah, went down a whole different road there.
[00:29:58.260]No, no, the Wallendas, the circus act for Barnum and Bailey.
[00:30:04.060]Stairs is, always been a tricky subject.
[00:30:08.270]When I ask people nowadays, what do you recommend for stairs
[00:30:12.470]or what do you think you should use in a staircase,
[00:30:15.160]most people say, a Little Giant-style ladder.
[00:30:18.760]Not that it has to be from Little Giant
[00:30:21.200]because everybody makes a Little Giant-style ladder.
[00:30:24.760]We're the inventors and our patents have run out
[00:30:29.730]and everyone has one.
[00:30:31.260]And so everyone refers to those ladders,
[00:30:33.570]even if they're made by another company,
[00:30:35.120]as a Little Giant ladder, even if they're not made by us.
[00:30:38.520]So know that there are ladders in aluminum and fiberglass
[00:30:43.580]designed specifically to work in a staircase.
[00:30:46.520]Don't get creative and try and set up
[00:30:49.330]your own little thing to work on stairs.
[00:30:52.470]If your ladder isn't big enough,
[00:30:54.210]stop what you're doing and go get a bigger ladder.
[00:30:58.450]Now, this probably doesn't happen very often.
[00:31:01.160]What does happen is that people stack ladders
[00:31:04.310]on top of tables and chairs, on top of pallets,
[00:31:07.680]or they'll pick a ladder up with a forklift
[00:31:10.350]to gain extra height.
[00:31:12.340]Never lift a ladder off the ground to gain extra height.
[00:31:15.870]If it's not big enough, go get a different ladder.
[00:31:18.220]Now, what happens even more than this
[00:31:20.010]is a thing called splicing or lashing.
[00:31:25.160]There's actually a section in the OSHA standard
[00:31:27.410]that talks specifically about this
[00:31:29.050]because it happens so often.
[00:31:31.280]People stack ladders on top of other ladders
[00:31:34.620]and then baling wire them together
[00:31:37.010]or use some duct tape or rope
[00:31:38.970]to try and tie two ladders together to make a bigger ladder.
[00:31:42.560]If it's not big enough, stop what you're doing,
[00:31:44.680]go get the right size ladder.
[00:31:45.650]Now, here's a problem with that.
[00:31:49.500]I'm gonna confess for the ladder industry.
[00:31:54.790]If you know that you have to climb 20 feet,
[00:31:58.040]can you go to the store and buy a 20-foot ladder
[00:32:00.500]and reach 20 feet?
[00:32:02.330]No.
[00:32:03.163]Why?
[00:32:03.996]It says 20 feet on the ladder.
[00:32:06.580]It's two 10-foot sections that add up to 20 feet.
[00:32:10.700]With three feet of overlap.
[00:32:12.610]A 20-foot ladder is only 17 feet long.
[00:32:15.750]So if you know you have to go 20 feet,
[00:32:18.150]you have to calculate that the ladder company's
[00:32:20.220]been lying to you your whole life.
[00:32:22.110]I didn't start it, I just apologize for it.
[00:32:24.841](audience laughing)
[00:32:26.120]Ladders are three feet shorter than what they say they are.
[00:32:29.150]It's in the small print.
[00:32:30.700]We've always sold them by the total length of the sections
[00:32:34.770]not by the usable height.
[00:32:36.770]So if you're calculating how big of a ladder to buy,
[00:32:41.080]make sure that you understand that
[00:32:43.030]your 20-foot ladder isn't 20 feet long.
[00:32:46.830]So, now, the standard for inspection for you has changed.
[00:32:56.290]You're classified in general industry,
[00:32:59.830]and just last year, has it been a whole year?
[00:33:03.150]Yeah, it's been a whole year.
[00:33:05.260]The walking-working surface standard came out
[00:33:08.090]and the answer to how often do you inspect your ladder
[00:33:11.220]used to be, every time you use it.
[00:33:14.590]And that's still a good rule of thumb best practice,
[00:33:18.070]but the actual verbiage in the standard has changed
[00:33:21.530]to at the start of every shift
[00:33:24.230]where that product is gonna be used.
[00:33:26.760]So they lightened it up a little bit and just said,
[00:33:31.850]it just needs to be inspected at the start of the shift.
[00:33:35.530]You know, not every time you go to climb on it.
[00:33:39.690]You know, and they made the change because
[00:33:42.100]some service companies like Comcast,
[00:33:44.610]or whoever your cable provider is here,
[00:33:47.050]those guys have to do 12 installs a day.
[00:33:50.430]They're not gonna inspect their ladder 12 times a day.
[00:33:52.530]They inspect it in the morning or if something happens to it
[00:33:57.030]if they inspect it at all.
[00:33:58.720]So, a ladder in good condition's
[00:34:01.860]not gonna be the cause of an accident.
[00:34:03.710]A ladder in these conditions
[00:34:06.110]could easily be the cause of the accident.
[00:34:08.260]There's a two-by-four bolted into the bottom of the ladder,
[00:34:11.670]supporting, no feet, twisted, bent, no feet,
[00:34:14.570]twisted, rags for feet, broken, bent.
[00:34:19.250]If there's damage to the ladder
[00:34:20.820]that wasn't there when we built it,
[00:34:22.440]you don't know what that ladder is rated for,
[00:34:24.380]we don't know what that ladder's rated for, don't climb it.
[00:34:27.720]If there's any damage to it, it needs to be tagged out
[00:34:30.400]and cut up and thrown away.
[00:34:34.898]We recommend that if you're throwing ladders away
[00:34:38.170]that you cut them down the middle
[00:34:40.630]so that the parts are unclimbable.
[00:34:43.170]Because we had to defend two lawsuits last year
[00:34:46.780]where a construction company cut their ladders up
[00:34:49.580]into five-foot sections and threw them into the dumpster.
[00:34:52.920]Somebody came along and took the five-foot sections
[00:34:55.320]out of the dumpster, used them on their job site,
[00:34:58.590]and their employees were injured.
[00:35:01.610]And they filed the lawsuit,
[00:35:03.270]not against the construction company they worked for,
[00:35:05.920]but the construction company that cut them up
[00:35:07.590]and threw them into the dumpster.
[00:35:10.720]Deeper pockets.
[00:35:12.240]So we recommend that ladders be unclimbable
[00:35:17.480]before you ever throw it into the dumpster.
[00:35:21.660]Now there's a great little app,
[00:35:24.690]it's a free download from NIOSH, just NIOSH ladder safety.
[00:35:29.570]If you have anything to do with ladder safety,
[00:35:32.270]it's a handy little tool.
[00:35:33.360]It's won a lot of awards and it's free.
[00:35:36.280]You can do a detailed inspection from the app.
[00:35:39.350]It'll walk you right through.
[00:35:41.770]As you touch the little green dots,
[00:35:44.640]it changes the box to the right
[00:35:47.290]and tells you what to look for.
[00:35:49.040]So it's a tutorial of how to do
[00:35:51.740]a detailed ladder inspection.
[00:35:53.410]It also has a ladder safety component
[00:35:57.780]that will allow you to teach a ladder safety class
[00:36:00.920]just with a few prompts.
[00:36:02.980]So it gives you a couple of bullet points
[00:36:04.570]and you can teach your own ladder safety class
[00:36:07.950]for your next safety meeting using that.
[00:36:10.620]If you're inspecting a ladder,
[00:36:14.710]I'm gonna give you kind of a really quick,
[00:36:16.880]this is ground-up, what you should look for
[00:36:19.570]not only at work but at home.
[00:36:23.100]Nobody looks at the feet of their ladder,
[00:36:25.470]but the feet of the ladder are like the tires on your truck.
[00:36:28.110]They're made of soft rubber,
[00:36:29.220]they have tread so that they grip the ground.
[00:36:32.210]If the tread is worn out or the feet are gone,
[00:36:35.650]that ladder is not gonna hold to the ground
[00:36:37.620]and that ladder's gonna slide out from underneath you.
[00:36:41.010]Those feet are your contact with the ground.
[00:36:43.690]They hold you in place.
[00:36:45.900]OSHA recommends that you never climb a ladder
[00:36:47.960]before you tie it off.
[00:36:50.200]But somebody has to climb it to get to the top
[00:36:52.710]to tie it off, right?
[00:36:54.670]Those feet are what are holding that person in place
[00:36:57.570]and rarely do they get tied off, anyhow.
[00:36:59.480]So that foot is really your key component.
[00:37:03.650]You wanna make sure that the feet are in good condition.
[00:37:06.070]And we sell replacement feet that are easy to put on.
[00:37:09.750]You don't have to throw your ladders away
[00:37:11.690]when the feet are bad, you just get new feet.
[00:37:14.810]If the side rails are bent, broken, cracked, or split,
[00:37:17.860]do not climb it.
[00:37:19.630]Aluminum is a little more ductile,
[00:37:21.770]but fiberglass is manufactured
[00:37:24.500]in a completely different way.
[00:37:26.330]Fiberglass is a bunch of little threads on spools
[00:37:29.870]that get fed down into a shaping die
[00:37:33.350]and injected with a composite resin,
[00:37:36.840]which is a fancy word for plastic.
[00:37:41.010]We just inject plastic epoxy over the top of those fibers
[00:37:45.810]that give it its strength.
[00:37:47.300]Once that plastic is broken, you can't put it back together.
[00:37:50.780]There's no glue or tape or weld that fixes fiberglass.
[00:37:55.290]So once your fiberglass ladder is damaged, it's bad.
[00:37:58.590]And it loses its mechanical properties really quickly.
[00:38:02.120]So it goes from holding 300 pounds
[00:38:04.130]to almost nothing very quickly.
[00:38:07.130]So any kind of damage to your fiberglass side rails
[00:38:10.960]or rungs, get rid of it.
[00:38:13.460]Now, there's a property called fiber bloom.
[00:38:16.650]What it really is is, everybody here has seen
[00:38:19.430]a ladder on a truck that's a faded color.
[00:38:24.310]Ladders come in safety yellow,
[00:38:27.640]safety orange, or high-vis green.
[00:38:30.300]After a year or so, they start to fade.
[00:38:33.170]A property of fiberglass is that it breaks down
[00:38:36.250]in UV radiation, or sunlight.
[00:38:39.180]There are coatings that protect fiberglass from the sun,
[00:38:42.420]but all of those coatings are conductive in nature
[00:38:44.710]so ladder manufacturers don't use them.
[00:38:48.410]It would defeat the purpose of making a fiberglass ladder.
[00:38:51.100]So best practice is, keep your ladders
[00:38:54.570]out of the sun as much as possible.
[00:38:58.010]But I want you to know, fiber bloom is a decade problem,
[00:39:01.680]not a short-term problem.
[00:39:05.290]If the ladder's been on the truck for 10 years,
[00:39:07.810]you might wanna start looking at changing it
[00:39:09.890]because the surface will start to crack and split
[00:39:13.750]and you'll start getting moisture
[00:39:15.450]absorbed into the fibers inside the resin and
[00:39:18.960]creates a weak spot. As it absorbs moisture it expands
[00:39:23.920]and creates that fiber bloom and creates a weak spot.
[00:39:27.050]Or it can actually arc electricity
[00:39:30.000]because of the water content of the glass.
[00:39:32.500]So your non-conductive fiberglass ladder
[00:39:34.970]can become conductive because of the water content.
[00:39:38.827]So steps, again, if they're broken, bent,
[00:39:42.640]cracked, or split, don't climb it.
[00:39:44.110]Also, make sure that they don't get
[00:39:45.660]a buildup of dirt or tar or paint.
[00:39:49.230]The rungs are manufactured with little ridges
[00:39:51.910]to hold your foot in place.
[00:39:53.100]If those are filled in with dirt or mud,
[00:39:55.230]they're not gonna hold your foot
[00:39:56.330]when you're climbing up and down.
[00:39:58.330]Labels, seems like a no brainer,
[00:40:00.100]but that's where all your safety information is.
[00:40:03.080]If the labels are rubbed off of your ladder,
[00:40:06.160]most construction companies won't allow them to be used.
[00:40:09.600]And ladder companies now start selling replacement labels.
[00:40:13.570]That didn't used to be the case about seven years ago.
[00:40:16.960]So now we do sell labels to, or give labels away.
[00:40:23.140]All you have to do is go to the website.
[00:40:25.770]Basically, this is the label that
[00:40:28.760]we thought would solve everything.
[00:40:30.870]It says, if you're too stupid to use this properly,
[00:40:33.700]stay off of it.
[00:40:34.646](audience laughing)
[00:40:35.479]OSHA said that was a little harsh.
[00:40:38.170]I don't know.
[00:40:40.950]Ladders, most ladders have some sort of
[00:40:45.210]either a spreader bar or a ratchet-type lock
[00:40:49.550]that will hold that ladder open or in place.
[00:40:53.160]Those need to be working properly,
[00:40:56.480]locking into place properly,
[00:40:57.780]and those latches need to be spring-loaded.
[00:41:00.520]It is possible to raise an extension ladder all the way up
[00:41:03.170]and lean it against the wall,
[00:41:04.830]and the pressure from the fly section and the base section
[00:41:08.530]will just hold it in place, without it being locked.
[00:41:12.300]So the person who finds out that it's not locked
[00:41:15.120]is the person who gets halfway up.
[00:41:17.470]And then it comes all the way down.
[00:41:19.730]So, now we've talked about
[00:41:25.600]picking the right ladder for the job
[00:41:27.650]and inspecting the ladder.
[00:41:29.680]I wanna talk a little bit about setup.
[00:41:31.710]And it sounds like such a basic principle,
[00:41:34.170]but the reason we wanna talk about setup is the statistics.
[00:41:38.200]This is where the numbers come in.
[00:41:43.034]168,000 workers go to the emergency room every year
[00:41:46.860]because of a ladder-related accident.
[00:41:49.310]Divided by work days, that's 500 workers a day.
[00:41:52.280]So today, while we're here,
[00:41:53.890]500 people will go to the emergency room
[00:41:55.730]because of a ladder-related accident.
[00:41:57.720]Just from the workforce, not including homeowners.
[00:42:01.230]That number jumps to about 2000 people
[00:42:03.170]when you include the CPSE's numbers of homeowners,
[00:42:06.580]people taking their Christmas lights off,
[00:42:08.970]things of that nature.
[00:42:09.890]So, it's, who in here knows somebody,
[00:42:15.680]you know, or of somebody that's been hurt on a ladder?
[00:42:21.610]That's a pretty good percentage of people
[00:42:23.550]have that experience and know somebody.
[00:42:26.650]It's a pretty common occurrence.
[00:42:30.481]Of the 500 workers today that are injured,
[00:42:34.980]half of them won't have fallen from a ladder.
[00:42:37.690]They'll be hurt because the ladder just weighs too much
[00:42:41.320]or they're awkward to set up.
[00:42:44.440]So they'll be hurt by the ladder,
[00:42:47.190]either taking it on and off the truck
[00:42:49.010]or losing control of it as they're trying to set it up.
[00:42:52.670]So half of the accident's aren't from falling.
[00:42:56.460]They're from just the weight and size.
[00:42:59.120]So that's why we talk about handling
[00:43:00.790]so much in ladder safety is,
[00:43:03.290]to be aware that ladders are bulky and heavy.
[00:43:07.660]Most places have a 40 pound or 50 pound minimum
[00:43:12.090]or maximum one-person carry.
[00:43:15.630]A 24-foot extension ladder weighs 65 pounds.
[00:43:18.830]And it's not 65 pounds in a box,
[00:43:20.830]it's 65 pounds stretched over 14 feet.
[00:43:24.540]So it's an awkward 65 pounds.
[00:43:26.680]If you're getting into a bigger ladder,
[00:43:29.610]some of those ladders are upwards of 90 pounds
[00:43:32.030]stretched over 14 or 16 feet.
[00:43:34.900]So very awkward, hard to lift,
[00:43:38.080]and rarely is it ever done by two people.
[00:43:41.220]So we're always exceeding the single-person carry.
[00:43:45.920]So handling is a huge issue.
[00:43:48.770]See the Charlie Chaplain or Keystone Cops?
[00:43:52.280]There was always an old scene where
[00:43:54.010]somebody had a ladder on their shoulder
[00:43:55.400]and they turned around and knocked over a bunch of people.
[00:43:58.980]That happens.
[00:44:00.740]People are injured by other people
[00:44:02.320]carrying ladders through job sites
[00:44:04.360]because that ladder goes where their head goes.
[00:44:07.620]A lot of property damage with service companies.
[00:44:11.550]There's construction companies that follow Comcast around
[00:44:15.330]and just fix the wall dings that those guys do in your house
[00:44:19.300]when they come to install your cable.
[00:44:22.360]So every city has a construction company
[00:44:25.540]that makes their living just fixing
[00:44:27.780]what the service companies do to your house
[00:44:30.430]because of those ladders.
[00:44:32.470]Don't get creative in setup.
[00:44:34.700]Ladders should be set as flat and as level as possible.
[00:44:40.120]What do you do in your yard
[00:44:41.550]when your ladder's leaning like this?
[00:44:44.960]Bricks and boards?
[00:44:47.060]Just say, well, it's leaning like this,
[00:44:48.760]so I'll climb it over here
[00:44:50.040]and I'll kind of calculate my balance point?
[00:44:54.330]It needs to be set as level and as flat
[00:44:57.370]and as secure as possible.
[00:45:00.680]If you're climbing an extension ladder,
[00:45:06.684]there's this crazy percent.
[00:45:11.620]The angle's supposed to be 75 and a half degrees.
[00:45:15.140]I don't know who put the half, but 75 and a half degrees,
[00:45:20.490]which they tell you you can calculate by saying
[00:45:24.260]for every four feet up I go, I have to come out one foot.
[00:45:28.720]So it's that four to one rule again.
[00:45:31.360]I don't wanna do a math problem.
[00:45:34.840]Firemen, if you're anyone here who's a volunteer fireman,
[00:45:38.040]firemen are trained that if you put your toes
[00:45:41.010]at the base of your ladder, hold your arms straight out,
[00:45:44.280]put the palm of your hand on the rung at shoulder height,
[00:45:47.160]everybody in here's body is built at a four to one ratio.
[00:45:51.060]Everybody in here, if they do that,
[00:45:52.640]will set their body up at 75 degrees.
[00:45:55.290]So before you ever climb that ladder at home,
[00:45:57.900]put your toes at the feet, hold your arms straight out
[00:46:00.860]so that you can close your fingers,
[00:46:02.410]palm of your hand on the rung at shoulder height
[00:46:05.360]and you'll set your ladder up at the right angle.
[00:46:08.670]Just the way we're built.
[00:46:11.710]What happens is, a lot of people want to
[00:46:13.330]climb the ladder a little flatter
[00:46:14.980]because it feels a little bit more comfortable.
[00:46:17.430]But that's gonna slide out from underneath you.
[00:46:19.850]If it's too steep, it's gonna come over this way.
[00:46:22.800]We build them, design them, and test them
[00:46:25.350]to be used at 75 degrees, plus or minus five.
[00:46:29.070]Your body will set it up at that angle
[00:46:32.300]if you just follow that simple rule.
[00:46:34.910]If you're going onto the roof, make sure that
[00:46:37.080]your ladder is three feet above that roof line
[00:46:39.840]so that you have something to hang on to
[00:46:41.560]as you transition on and off the ladder.
[00:46:45.280]The process of transitioning is,
[00:46:47.800]I'm pushing with my leg as hard as I can against that ladder
[00:46:53.700]to push my body over here onto the roof.
[00:46:57.200]Which means that if that's not secure,
[00:46:58.830]I don't have something to hang on to,
[00:47:00.600]I'm gonna kick that ladder out from underneath myself
[00:47:03.320]as I'm transitioning.
[00:47:05.700]Or I've got the ladder right up against the edge of the roof
[00:47:09.080]I'm gonna climb down and feel around with my toe
[00:47:12.260]and see where that ladder is.
[00:47:13.820]That's a bad feeling.
[00:47:15.920]Three feet above the roof line.
[00:47:17.600]This is actually 55% of all of the OSHA violations
[00:47:22.620]involving ladders, are that one thing.
[00:47:26.210]Not because it's responsible for a lot of accidents
[00:47:29.530]but because it's easy to see.
[00:47:31.880]The OSHA guy can see that from his car.
[00:47:34.710]So he's gonna drive past your job site and see that
[00:47:37.110]your ladders aren't three feet above the roof line.
[00:47:39.410]We refer to that as a red flag violation.
[00:47:42.510]It's an invite to have somebody stop and do an inspection
[00:47:46.260]if you don't have your ladders at least three feet above.
[00:47:49.120]So, three points of contact.
[00:47:53.760]I use this picture for three points of contact
[00:47:56.260]because of the purpose of the rule.
[00:47:59.600]It's, three points of contact says, in the standard,
[00:48:04.660]face the ladder as you go up and down,
[00:48:07.160]maintain three points of contact,
[00:48:08.910]which is defined as two feet, one hand, two hands, one foot,
[00:48:12.480]or maintain balance and control of yourself
[00:48:14.940]and then don't carry anything that's bulky or heavy
[00:48:17.660]that might cause you to lose your balance
[00:48:19.230]as you're transitioning up and down.
[00:48:22.380]It never says what you're supposed to do
[00:48:24.230]when you stop and work from a ladder.
[00:48:26.610]So a lot of people have interpreted it to say,
[00:48:29.560]well, you have to maintain three points of contact
[00:48:32.010]while on a ladder at all times.
[00:48:34.800]And they've written that into their own policy,
[00:48:36.840]which then becomes the rule.
[00:48:38.950]But that's a hard rule to follow
[00:48:41.060]because you can't do anything from a ladder one-handed
[00:48:44.370]besides screw a light bulb in.
[00:48:47.330]And then you gotta put the light bulb someplace.
[00:48:52.040]So the real rule in the standard is, as you go up and down,
[00:48:58.090]we want you to maintain balance and control of yourself.
[00:49:01.240]The British standard has actually clarified it.
[00:49:04.130]This is from the British OSHA standard.
[00:49:08.170]It says, if you're working where you're gonna have
[00:49:10.900]both hands necessary for the work,
[00:49:13.380]you lean your knee or chest into the ladder
[00:49:16.520]to maintain your third point of contact with your body,
[00:49:20.170]to maintain balance and control
[00:49:22.330]as you let go to do that work.
[00:49:24.380]We're actually asking for a Letter of Interpretation
[00:49:26.720]from OSHA to get them to clarify the US standard
[00:49:30.640]so that it's not such a gray area in ladder safety.
[00:49:34.840]But what we've always taught is,
[00:49:36.410]when you get to where you're gonna work,
[00:49:38.040]you lock your leg into the ladder
[00:49:40.450]using your hip or your stomach, leaning into the ladder,
[00:49:44.000]to then let go to do your work.
[00:49:46.910]The older I get, the more points of contact I seem to have.
[00:49:50.760]So three points doesn't seem to be a problem.
[00:49:52.810]It's well over that.
[00:49:55.440]This is what we're trying to prevent
[00:49:57.260]with three points of contact.
[00:49:58.640]We don't want you carrying
[00:49:59.690]a big, bulky item up and down a ladder
[00:50:02.260]that needs to come up and down some other way.
[00:50:04.470]Don't get creative.
[00:50:06.983]Creativity's the enemy.
[00:50:08.330]Face the ladder, again, as you go up and down.
[00:50:11.040]And if you don't remember anything of what I said today,
[00:50:14.940]this is the one thing that I want you to remember:
[00:50:17.930]always keep your body between the side rails of the ladder.
[00:50:23.750]If you can't reach what you need to reach
[00:50:27.320]between the side rails of the ladder,
[00:50:29.120]climb down, move the ladder over, and climb back up.
[00:50:33.290]This look familiar?
[00:50:36.720]Right, you do the one-leg ballerina pose off of the ladder
[00:50:41.000]because you think, I can calculate
[00:50:43.170]how to balance this whole thing out
[00:50:44.550]to reach out and grab that last thing
[00:50:47.100]without having to take the time of moving over.
[00:50:50.190]Now, we talked about those numbers.
[00:50:51.970]500 people go to the hospital.
[00:50:53.830]Half of those people are just hurt
[00:50:55.610]because of the weight of the ladder.
[00:50:57.470]This one thing right here is responsible for
[00:51:01.520]35 permanent disabilities
[00:51:03.630]and at least one fatality every day.
[00:51:08.350]So over 12,000 families' lives are completely changed
[00:51:11.230]because of that one thing, overreaching.
[00:51:14.850]Not taking the time to climb down
[00:51:16.440]and move the ladder over and climb back up.
[00:51:17.990]Keep your body between the side rails of the ladder.
[00:51:22.290]Don't overreach.
[00:51:23.880]This is, these are the really bad statistics
[00:51:27.170]that we're trying to change.
[00:51:29.390]It's about getting everybody home at the end of the day.
[00:51:33.700]And that one rule can be traced back as the root cause
[00:51:38.810]of all of those disabilities and fatalities.
[00:51:43.130]So the number in the last two years of fatalities
[00:51:47.290]has gone up, not down.
[00:51:49.870]And some of it's because of the increase
[00:51:52.330]in the amount of work going on.
[00:51:54.650]But percentage-wise, it's increasing as well.
[00:51:59.040]So part of the answer to getting that guy home
[00:52:01.580]at the end of the day is training,
[00:52:03.790]letting him know what the risks are,
[00:52:05.720]letting him know the basics.
[00:52:08.570]Choose the right ladder.
[00:52:10.140]Make sure it's long enough and strong enough.
[00:52:13.420]Inspect it to make sure it's in good condition.
[00:52:15.310]Set it up as level as he can.
[00:52:16.700]Keep his body between the side rails.
[00:52:18.330]Four easy things.
[00:52:19.850]That's the message we wanna get out as an industry.
[00:52:22.830]The other prong of our approach is
[00:52:24.730]changing the ladder as we know it.
[00:52:28.590]Part of the problem is Grandpa's ladder.
[00:52:30.480]When I say Grandpa's ladder, hopefully you get a picture
[00:52:33.100]in your head of that rickety old ladder
[00:52:34.940]that your family has in the back of the shed
[00:52:37.150]or in your garage somewhere.
[00:52:39.570]You don't wanna go get it.
[00:52:40.430]You have to pull the car out,
[00:52:41.783]then you gotta drag it into the house and ding the door jamb
[00:52:45.360]and then it's rickety and scary anyhow.
[00:52:48.650]So part of the problem is, we're using old,
[00:52:51.720]tell me, what product do you use right now,
[00:52:54.860]every day, that's exactly the same as it was
[00:52:57.270]when your grandparents were using that same product?
[00:53:00.740]Don't you guys remember that
[00:53:01.650]the phone used to be on the wall?
[00:53:03.970]Right, and you hated when somebody had
[00:53:06.410]a nine in the phone number because
[00:53:07.580]it had to go all the way around.
[00:53:09.130]And if you were talking to your girlfriend,
[00:53:10.650]you were like in the pantry,
[00:53:12.560]because everybody could hear, right?
[00:53:14.820]Some of you might remember party lines on phones.
[00:53:19.760]Like on the Andy Griffith Show, you know,
[00:53:22.820]you pick up the phone and the lady's on the other end,
[00:53:25.360]says, hey, connect me to Mabel.
[00:53:28.180]Oh, Mabel's at the store, call her back later.
[00:53:31.140]I mean, that's how much it's changed in our lifetimes.
[00:53:34.980]There's still a few basic tools that are the same.
[00:53:37.380]A needle's the same, an anvil's the same.
[00:53:40.010]Chances are you don't use an anvil on a daily basis,
[00:53:42.190]but they're the same as they were.
[00:53:44.030]Ladders are the same.
[00:53:47.080]We haven't changed much.
[00:53:49.770]This is a playground from 1904.
[00:53:52.350]You been to a playground lately?
[00:53:54.880]Does this look like, this is actually
[00:53:56.970]training for these guys, right?
[00:53:59.570]Survival of the fittest in fourth grade.
[00:54:01.500]If you lived through it, you got to be a steelworker.
[00:54:04.174](audience laughing)
[00:54:05.620]This is what we grew up with, right?
[00:54:08.610]I received as a present for my birthday
[00:54:11.190]in a box from a toy store a toy called a lawn dart.
[00:54:14.910]Anyone have lawn darts?
[00:54:16.538](audience murmuring and laughing)
[00:54:17.371]A big steel spike that you threw into the air
[00:54:21.010]and it landed in a hula hoop
[00:54:22.860]that's surrounded by your friends.
[00:54:25.930]See if you could hit in the middle, right?
[00:54:28.230]They've modified that a little.
[00:54:29.750]Now they call it corn hole and they do it with a bean bag.
[00:54:32.540]Back when we were kids and real men were men,
[00:54:35.570]we used a steel spike and threw it at each other.
[00:54:39.700]So things have changed, things have improved,
[00:54:43.200]things have gotten better.
[00:54:45.730]Ladders have stayed the same.
[00:54:48.230]Now, if you're gonna design a better product,
[00:54:51.070]this is a simplified version of the hierarchy of control.
[00:54:56.260]Designing the danger out, that's the best way to do it.
[00:54:59.310]I used to think that a Nerf basketball was the perfect toy.
[00:55:03.610]You designed out all of the danger.
[00:55:06.570]And then I got hit by one that had been
[00:55:08.390]in the pool for a while and realized that
[00:55:10.837]there was still some work to be done.
[00:55:14.100]If you can't design out all the dangers,
[00:55:16.330]guard against the dangers.
[00:55:18.320]If you can't guard against the danger,
[00:55:20.500]then you put warning labels on it,
[00:55:23.080]you hold a training class,
[00:55:24.630]or you provide PPE or personal protection.
[00:55:28.530]What the ladder industry has done for the last 200 years
[00:55:32.390]is say, our product is dangerous,
[00:55:34.860]we're just gonna put stickers on the side
[00:55:37.100]that make it your fault if something happens.
[00:55:41.690]And we're running out of room for stickers, so.
[00:55:46.579]We talked about cars earlier.
[00:55:49.540]What if the car companies did
[00:55:50.970]the same thing that the ladder companies did?
[00:55:53.610]Your car would just have a big sticker on the dash
[00:55:55.740]that says, don't run into things.
[00:55:57.250]Right, it's your fault if you do any of this stuff.
[00:56:00.360]Instead, they've put in safety features
[00:56:02.530]that have prevented the accident and injury.
[00:56:04.700]So that's what we need to do as an industry.
[00:56:06.840]There's three major categories that we need to look at.
[00:56:10.040]We kind of covered them in the statistics.
[00:56:12.850]Half of the people are injured just because
[00:56:14.710]the ladder weighs too much and is too awkward.
[00:56:18.100]People don't use the right ladder for the job
[00:56:20.270]mostly because the right ladder for the job weighs too much
[00:56:23.120]so they use a smaller ladder than they should.
[00:56:25.920]Or they overreach, which is the cause of
[00:56:28.410]all of the disabilities and fatalities.
[00:56:30.600]So those are the three major categories
[00:56:32.490]of how we need to approach fixing ladders by design.
[00:56:37.080]So, problem number one was weight.
[00:56:40.460]Ladders weigh too much.
[00:56:44.130]Recently, we've manufactured fiberglass
[00:56:49.280]using carbon fiber technology that's reduced
[00:56:54.410]the fiberglass side rails by 30% in weight.
[00:56:58.040]So the cable company used to use
[00:57:00.730]a 24-foot extension ladder that weighted 75 pounds.
[00:57:03.690]The one they use now weighs 50 pounds.
[00:57:06.230]Same weight rating, same size, same everything.
[00:57:09.170]You think those guys like carrying a 50 pound ladder
[00:57:11.440]better than the 75 pound?
[00:57:12.680]Yeah, yeah.
[00:57:14.110]The guy called me from the cable company and he said,
[00:57:16.970]half my trucks have the new ladder,
[00:57:18.620]half have the old ladder.
[00:57:20.420]Guys come in early to work
[00:57:22.340]to switch the ladders off their trucks,
[00:57:25.200]to put the lightweight ladders on their truck
[00:57:27.870]and then drive out and then the guys that get there late
[00:57:30.770]complain, oh man, someone took my ladder.
[00:57:33.690]So, he said there's a problem with ladder damage.
[00:57:38.130]The percentage had gone up because all of the sudden
[00:57:40.590]people were running over old ladders
[00:57:43.240]because they weren't going to get replaced
[00:57:45.390]until they needed to be fixed.
[00:57:46.670]So when somebody, when it's of personal benefit to them,
[00:57:52.300]the safety product will be adopted and used.
[00:57:54.730]If it's safe but it's a pain, not so much.
[00:57:58.150]But if it's a personal benefit,
[00:57:59.580]that's the best way to design a product.
[00:58:01.530]We do add wheels to any of our really big products.
[00:58:04.210]Wheels have been around about as long as ladders have.
[00:58:07.470]Problem number two is not using the right ladder for the job
[00:58:10.530]and hopefully just by making it lighter,
[00:58:13.060]we'll solve that problem.
[00:58:15.290]But I wanna talk about a little field trial we did.
[00:58:20.070]You'll notice, on this ladder there isn't a top rung.
[00:58:26.600]There isn't a top step.
[00:58:28.270]We had a group say, why do you put a top step on the ladder
[00:58:32.170]if we can't stand on it?
[00:58:34.870]And the only answer I could think of was,
[00:58:36.770]well, that's where the sticker goes
[00:58:38.160]that says, don't stand here.
[00:58:39.440]So we needed a step to put the sticker.
[00:58:40.813](audience laughing)
[00:58:43.620]So we went into a mechanical contracting company
[00:58:47.090]after they closed, we took off all of the A-frame ladders
[00:58:50.700]off of their trucks, replaced them with A-frame ladders
[00:58:53.430]that were missing the top step.
[00:58:55.660]The next morning, every single crew called back and said
[00:58:58.940]the ladder that you put on my truck
[00:59:00.320]is too short to do the job.
[00:59:03.460]Which was horrifying to the safety officer
[00:59:05.870]because he was just being told that
[00:59:07.700]they were misusing their ladders all along
[00:59:10.490]and they were standing on the top
[00:59:11.960]where they weren't supposed to.
[00:59:13.310]So we just removed the ladder altogether.
[00:59:15.420]Now, one of the real solutions there is a step stool.
[00:59:22.040]And I'll modify this to pull up a step stool.
[00:59:28.640]Anything in this building is going to be safer
[00:59:32.330]from a step stool than a stepladder.
[00:59:35.690]A stepladder is designed so that it's flared at the bottom
[00:59:40.000]and you've only got so many rungs that are usable.
[00:59:43.970]Most of the time you have to turn the ladder sideways
[00:59:46.960]to get close enough to your job.
[00:59:48.800]So you're climbing up a ladder and turning your body
[00:59:52.270]like this and working over this gap.
[00:59:55.770]So I'm putting my body in a weird position,
[00:59:58.640]working this direction against the narrow side of my ladder.
[01:00:04.030]With a step stool, I can set it right up against the work.
[01:00:06.680]I can walk up the steps and stand on a platform,
[01:00:09.810]work safely in the direction that I need to face
[01:00:13.040]with my feet completely supported
[01:00:14.770]and a handrail giving me support up and down.
[01:00:18.600]Now, in a situation like this at a university,
[01:00:25.030]we've gone back and forth with safety people
[01:00:26.810]because we say, well, why don't you provide ladders
[01:00:31.250]for the professors and the teachers
[01:00:34.200]in the school districts to have?
[01:00:37.970]And they say, well, because the number one expenditure
[01:00:41.690]in that report was strains and sprains.
[01:00:44.750]And ladders weigh too much,
[01:00:46.640]so we don't wanna give access to Mrs. Jones
[01:00:50.330]to go down to the closet and pick up a big, heavy ladder.
[01:00:54.100]You know, it's not just the weight.
[01:00:56.550]We conducted an investigation,
[01:00:58.290]we have somebody who got hurt when the person was--
[01:01:01.933](people speaking over each other)
[01:01:02.883]Oh, she's got a mic for you, so that it'll.
[01:01:06.070](laughing)
[01:01:11.500]So the person, our maintenance guys carry
[01:01:15.170]six feet or eight feet ladder on top of the van.
[01:01:20.590]Most people have vans.
[01:01:22.270]And this guy was taking eight feet ladder off the van
[01:01:26.280]because it wasn't, it didn't fit inside a van.
[01:01:28.890]So that's how the person got hurt in the shoulders.
[01:01:33.700]Not so much the back, or, so what would be your suggestion?
[01:01:38.890]Eight feet ladder, they needed the taller ladder,
[01:01:41.667]but it didn't fit into the vehicle.
[01:01:45.120]So, most service companies that do repetitive, on and off
[01:01:51.500]are using new ladder racks that have a handle
[01:01:54.550]that moves the ladder from the top of the truck
[01:01:57.850]to the side of the truck with a cam.
[01:02:00.840]So with a little lever, they flip it
[01:02:03.160]and it moves the ladder down to the side of the truck
[01:02:06.290]and the guy can just take it off,
[01:02:07.640]or the operator just grabs the ladder at chest height,
[01:02:12.260]takes it, puts it back on, and then cranks it
[01:02:14.730]and it goes back to the top of the truck.
[01:02:16.270]So it's an age-old problem that's been solved
[01:02:20.690]by the rack manufacturers.
[01:02:23.600]Our approach is to make the ladders lighter,
[01:02:27.130]but you're still handling, again,
[01:02:29.500]eight feet long of a ladder
[01:02:32.480]and a 40-pound weight, that's awkward.
[01:02:36.140]So bringing it closer down to where the operator can
[01:02:40.060]take it on and off without having,
[01:02:42.730]sometimes the operator is so short,
[01:02:45.790]he can't get to the ladder on the top of his van.
[01:02:48.190]So what they do is, they step on the tire of the van
[01:02:52.410]to get to the top of the van to take the ladder off.
[01:02:54.910]And so they're taking the ladder in to use it to be safe,
[01:02:58.580]but the operation of getting it on and off the truck
[01:03:00.880]is the most dangerous thing that they do.
[01:03:04.800]So that's why 50% of the accidents and injuries
[01:03:09.120]are just from taking the ladder on and off the truck
[01:03:12.250]or moving it from place to place,
[01:03:14.060]or because that handling situation of getting it up and down.
[01:03:19.830]So most of the cable companies will use
[01:03:22.110]the type of rack that will move it,
[01:03:26.510]especially with those bigger ladders,
[01:03:28.260]to where they need to be.
[01:03:32.430]Problem number three is overreaching.
[01:03:36.410]This is the one that disables people and kills people
[01:03:39.620]and we want to avoid that.
[01:03:43.000]One of the problems with overreaching accidents
[01:03:45.520]is the levelness of the ground.
[01:03:47.870]If you're one inch off at the bottom of an extension ladder,
[01:03:51.060]it puts the top of your ladder 19 inches off.
[01:03:54.400]So that's in a 24-foot length, 19 inches.
[01:03:59.330]The ladder's only 18 inches wide.
[01:04:01.300]So the top of your ladder's completely out of the footprint
[01:04:03.970]just by being this much off at the bottom.
[01:04:07.510]So most companies, when I ask them what they do,
[01:04:09.730]they say, bricks and boards, scrap wood.
[01:04:13.670]AT&T, you'd think they'd have a budget
[01:04:15.410]for something like this, right,
[01:04:16.500]they've been around for a little while.
[01:04:18.370]The senior safety guy for AT&T said,
[01:04:22.120]in the back of their vans they had a stack of wood blocks
[01:04:25.920]that, quarter-inch, half-inch, inch,
[01:04:29.740]and they use them in different variations
[01:04:32.850]depending on how much they need to level.
[01:04:35.430]So they actually set up a little Jenga pile
[01:04:38.740]to set their ladder up.
[01:04:41.220]And that's been their solution for the last hundred years,
[01:04:44.010]just give everybody a bag of blocks
[01:04:46.980]to build up their own ladder.
[01:04:50.620]So don't level your ladder using bricks and boards.
[01:04:54.350]OSHA says you're supposed to dig out the high side
[01:04:57.180]instead of building up the low side.
[01:04:59.130]That almost never happens in a service industry
[01:05:01.873]because you don't wanna dig up somebody's yard.
[01:05:04.620]So we do have after-market levelers that can be added,
[01:05:09.650]just bolted on to existing ladders.
[01:05:11.170]There are 20, 27 manufacturers in the United States
[01:05:15.520]that can supply these.
[01:05:17.220]The big problem we see with after-market levelers are
[01:05:21.390]they add weight to an already heavy product
[01:05:24.140]and they level the ground, but they don't add anything
[01:05:28.110]to prevent the overreach accident.
[01:05:31.120]They just take away the factor of the levelness.
[01:05:34.930]What we've done is added outriggers
[01:05:39.580]that open and close and level to the ground.
[01:05:43.720]Because our ladders are 30% lighter than everybody else's,
[01:05:47.540]we've been able to add the legs
[01:05:49.190]that triple the width at the base and level to the ground
[01:05:52.720]and still be lighter than Grandpa's extension ladder.
[01:05:57.150]So we're making ladders that are safer by design.
[01:06:01.630]This is the future of extension ladders.
[01:06:04.500]Why would you climb an extension ladder
[01:06:06.950]that's 18 inches wide all the way up and down
[01:06:09.930]when there's one available that has
[01:06:12.650]triple the width at the base and it levels
[01:06:15.950]so you don't have to go find a brick or a board
[01:06:17.860]to scavenge that together.
[01:06:22.250]So this is, this actually won
[01:06:27.900]last year's Innovation of the Year award
[01:06:30.710]at last year's National Safety Council show.
[01:06:33.970]So you'll see that with more and more companies.
[01:06:40.100]We own the pat, sorry, I just hit the mic,
[01:06:43.380]we own the patent rights to this, but as a company,
[01:06:46.070]we feel like it's so beneficial
[01:06:47.700]to ladder safety as an industry
[01:06:50.960]that we've released the patent rights to the industry
[01:06:54.460]so that the other ladder companies can start
[01:06:56.320]manufacturing ladders like this
[01:06:58.170]because we believe so strongly that
[01:07:00.200]this will save people's lives.
[01:07:03.470]With a big A-frame ladder, we have some customers that say,
[01:07:08.600]we have to maintain three points of contact
[01:07:10.490]and we can't get the work done.
[01:07:12.010]Or, our safety officer says that
[01:07:14.260]we have to be tied off from above.
[01:07:16.820]Well, tied off to what?
[01:07:20.390]A tie-off harness and lanyard is
[01:07:22.350]only as good as what you're hooked to.
[01:07:25.000]And in the standard, it has to be hooked to
[01:07:27.700]an engineered, certified anchorage point,
[01:07:31.620]not to a piece of conduit, not to a water pipe.
[01:07:35.820]It has to be an anchorage point.
[01:07:38.120]So how often do you think there's
[01:07:39.420]a certified anchorage point
[01:07:40.600]above where you need to use a ladder?
[01:07:43.290]Well, the equivalent to a tie-off is a guardrail.
[01:07:46.460]So if you put a guardrail system at the top of the ladder,
[01:07:49.500]you're taking the guardrail with you every place you go.
[01:07:52.660]So a 42-inch guardrails system
[01:07:54.540]with a one-way walk-in gate that locks behind you.
[01:07:58.030]Once you get to the top, you step into
[01:08:00.390]a scaffolding-type setup and you're able to work both hands
[01:08:05.310]without being tied off from above.
[01:08:07.150]Now, this isn't the replacement for a stepladder.
[01:08:13.000]We recommend some of the lighter weight step stools for that.
[01:08:17.740]This is the replacement for small scaffold jobs
[01:08:21.470]or scissor lift jobs, where you'd have to pay
[01:08:24.140]to bring in a piece of equipment.
[01:08:28.280]On this university, I'll name a few
[01:08:30.930]that you might not have thought about.
[01:08:33.050]You've got a museum, you've got a theater department,
[01:08:36.320]you've got an athletic department,
[01:08:38.250]you've got an auditorium someplace that has stadium seating,
[01:08:45.950]sloped seating, that one side of the ladder
[01:08:48.320]needs to be shorter than the other.
[01:08:50.270]You've got big entryways and big stairways
[01:08:52.680]because you have these great big administration buildings.
[01:08:56.280]So there's half a dozen places around every single campus
[01:09:00.120]that could use one of these instead of
[01:09:02.890]the big heavy scissor lifts
[01:09:04.510]that you can't get where you need to go.
[01:09:07.128](man speaking in background)
[01:09:08.150]Yeah, there we go.
[01:09:12.274]And they're heavy and they're bulky
[01:09:14.880]and they're hard to set up, but they are a safer alternative
[01:09:20.650]than trying to figure out how to
[01:09:22.720]put a scissor lift in a staircase
[01:09:24.290]or shutting a staircase that can be
[01:09:26.770]an emergency exit access area down for a couple of days
[01:09:31.790]while somebody comes in to set scaffolding in that area.
[01:09:34.880]So it's important to be able to
[01:09:37.440]set those things up and do it.
[01:09:40.050]Now, our job is to prevent injuries and save lives.
[01:09:44.360]Ever since we went with this motto
[01:09:46.320]and we started making all of our decisions with this focus,
[01:09:51.130]we've just gone into,
[01:09:52.540]we're gonna make ladders safer by design.
[01:09:54.960]I'll give you the one example that I don't have a picture of
[01:09:57.710]so I'll just describe it.
[01:09:59.980]About 25% of accidents on A-frame ladders happen because,
[01:10:04.050]as I'm climbing down the ladder,
[01:10:05.480]I step off before I get to the bottom step.
[01:10:08.240]Everybody knows exactly what I'm talking about
[01:10:10.240]because you've either done it
[01:10:11.610]or you've gone down a dark staircase carrying something
[01:10:15.020]and you thought there was another step and there wasn't
[01:10:17.680]and your mind did this thing that almost broke your ankle.
[01:10:21.350]Right, you did this.
[01:10:23.330]Everyone's done it.
[01:10:24.830]Well, people do that every single day off of ladders.
[01:10:27.220]They're climbing down, out of their peripheral vision,
[01:10:29.630]they see the ground, so they step off.
[01:10:32.250]So we get ankles and knees and worse,
[01:10:34.430]we get people falling back onto their backs
[01:10:36.760]and their necks and their heads.
[01:10:39.260]The most dangerous step on a ladder
[01:10:41.250]is the second one, not the top one.
[01:10:44.290]More people fall, statistically, from that second step
[01:10:47.170]than any other step on a ladder because they step off early.
[01:10:51.170]So we took that as a, if we know that's a problem,
[01:10:54.990]how are we gonna fix it?
[01:10:57.010]So the ladders that we were showing
[01:10:59.000]at the National Safety Show in Houston this week,
[01:11:03.910]the bottom step of all of our ladders
[01:11:06.130]have a little ridge across the step
[01:11:09.180]that, when you step on it, it clicks and vibrates.
[01:11:12.920]So it makes an audible and tactile noise and vibration
[01:11:18.520]that conditions the climber to know that
[01:11:20.930]the bottom step of his ladder is different
[01:11:22.650]than all of the other steps.
[01:11:24.350]So we don't have to hold a training class.
[01:11:26.040]It's a Pavlovian thing of, after I've used this ladder
[01:11:30.630]three or four times, I know that I'm not gonna step off
[01:11:33.870]until I hear and feel the bottom step.
[01:11:36.730]Right, so we're trying to build a better mousetrap,
[01:11:43.230]prevent the accident from ever happening, by design.
[01:11:46.640]Stop climbing Grandpa's ladder, stop using old technology.
[01:11:51.270]Part of the process is, train people to know that
[01:11:54.990]it's the number one danger, it's the number one expense,
[01:11:59.470]it's the number one concern, and that ladder accidents
[01:12:02.780]are three times harder to recover from
[01:12:05.490]because they involve impact.
[01:12:08.020]So don't take the risks to try and get the job done
[01:12:10.890]a couple seconds faster by using the wrong tool for the job
[01:12:14.750]or misusing the right tool.
[01:12:17.540]So teach them, choose the right ladder, inspect it,
[01:12:20.550]set it up flat, stay between the side rails.
[01:12:23.960]The other part is, know that
[01:12:25.740]there's new technology out there
[01:12:27.270]not just from my company, but from all companies.
[01:12:32.000]All US manufacturers now make
[01:12:34.300]a lighter weight version of their extension ladders
[01:12:37.240]to reduce strain and sprain.
[01:12:39.270]All companies are coming out with flare and leveling.
[01:12:42.880]All companies are coming out with platform ladders
[01:12:45.270]with guardrail systems that are gonna give you
[01:12:47.920]something to hold on to or some protection
[01:12:50.530]while you're working at the top of the ladder.
[01:12:52.920]Know that there's new technology
[01:12:54.690]that can prevent accidents by design.
[01:12:57.830]And so between those two things, hopefully,
[01:13:02.630]I keep saying, you know, hopefully,
[01:13:04.620]when they do the statistics, we'll see the number drop
[01:13:07.660]and we can go to dinner and celebrate.
[01:13:11.330]The weird way to say it is, if we do our job correctly
[01:13:14.420]in the next few years, people won't know we did anything.
[01:13:17.910]They'll all just get home at the end of the day.
[01:13:21.070]So that's our real goal, is for people to
[01:13:23.700]not know that we did anything,
[01:13:26.130]that they just do their job, get home at the end of the day,
[01:13:29.050]without ever having to have an accident.
[01:13:32.260]So we wanna reduce all of those,
[01:13:33.760]get everybody home safely at the end of the day.
[01:13:36.320]For you, not only here in your job, but when you go home
[01:13:40.580]and you're trying to get that done this weekend
[01:13:42.870]before the game starts, even if there's been
[01:13:45.670]some beverages consumed ahead of time,
[01:13:48.130]we want you to follow those basic rules
[01:13:50.040]because those statistics go way, way, way up
[01:13:53.230]when we include homeowners.
[01:13:54.850]And if you get hurt at home on the weekend on a ladder,
[01:13:58.160]it still affects everybody here.
[01:14:03.110]Safety in general is personal and emotional,
[01:14:06.270]two things that I never thought I would
[01:14:08.200]associate with our industry.
[01:14:10.930]But people care about you.
[01:14:15.780]Everybody reacts badly when somebody gets injured.
[01:14:20.080]It's an emotional thing and a personal thing.
[01:14:23.680]And so stay safe, climb safe, don't get creative,
[01:14:28.400]take that extra couple of seconds to do it the right way.
[01:14:31.530]And thanks for coming today.
[01:14:33.370]Anybody have any questions?
[01:14:37.811](people speaking softly)
[01:14:43.330]Okay, is there any reclamation efforts
[01:14:46.600]that the manufacturers make
[01:14:47.790]to get those out of shape ladders out?
[01:14:53.490]So that's probably the most asked question that we get,
[01:14:58.690]is, can we give you a truckload of our old ladders
[01:15:02.050]to get a truckload of the new ladders?
[01:15:04.780]Unfortunately, fiberglass isn't recyclable that we can
[01:15:09.310]just take it and just make other ladders with very easily.
[01:15:15.050]So no, it's gonna be a slow transition.
[01:15:18.650]As ladders have a decade lifespan,
[01:15:22.930]so we're gonna see, as people start
[01:15:25.320]phasing out their older ladders and buying new ladders,
[01:15:29.180]they'll start seeing the new, safer stuff
[01:15:30.868]come into the flow, the workflow.
[01:15:35.640]We do see some of the bigger companies,
[01:15:38.390]Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, companies like that,
[01:15:43.760]that can show a return on investment really quickly
[01:15:46.730]that just scrap everything that they have and buy new stuff
[01:15:49.990]because they have, I mean, it's,
[01:15:54.790]Comcast has 50,000 technicians in the field every single day
[01:15:59.740]making sure that they have cable TV
[01:16:01.240]up and running in the United States.
[01:16:03.480]Each one of those technicians does 10 installs a day.
[01:16:07.040]So that's a half a million ladder handles
[01:16:10.160]that the safety officer from Comcast
[01:16:12.020]has to deal with on a daily basis.
[01:16:15.010]And if you add the other cable companies into that,
[01:16:17.420]there's over a million ladder handles a day
[01:16:19.950]just in keeping cable TV up and running.
[01:16:23.040]So for some of those bigger companies,
[01:16:25.850]it makes sense for them to just redo their entire inventory.
[01:16:31.150]But for most people, they won't see a lot of the new stuff
[01:16:35.140]even trickling down to home use for another decade.
[01:16:38.960]It gets accepted and adopted by the professionals
[01:16:42.260]and then it starts being used by the homeowner
[01:16:45.670]in a lighter weight retail format,
[01:16:50.810]you know, years down the road,
[01:16:52.050]once people understand the new technology.
[01:16:55.050]So we've got a big, overall plan for world domination,
[01:17:00.210]but we can't just replace everybody's ladders
[01:17:02.830]and stay in business, so that's the,
[01:17:05.750]we'd love to, but we just can't do it, financially.
[01:17:11.850]Make sure you have the mic.
[01:17:13.940]Yeah.
[01:17:15.008](laughing)
[01:17:16.230]One of the things that you didn't address
[01:17:19.010]where I thought you could've done some salesmanship
[01:17:20.990]was with the question about the eight-foot stepladder
[01:17:23.390]on top of the vehicle.
[01:17:24.840]What we have done is, we've gone to
[01:17:26.850]a lot of the Little Giant-type ladders
[01:17:28.417]that even actually fold down into a four-foot ladder,
[01:17:31.320]get them into the back of a vehicle,
[01:17:33.130]that doesn't require you to put something
[01:17:34.690]up on top in a cumbersome height.
[01:17:37.570]And so it allows that ease of access, it's more ergonomic.
[01:17:42.270]Thank you, I'll get your commission check to you.
[01:17:44.780]Excellent. (audience laughing)
[01:17:45.613]I walk a tightrope,
[01:17:46.630]when I speak from the safety association,
[01:17:49.780]not to do a sales pitch.
[01:17:50.850]And so a lot of times they set the ball right at the net
[01:17:54.490]and I, oooh, and I avoid getting into.
[01:18:00.530]Because we have a lot of really cool stuff that could,
[01:18:05.900]and if you're interested in a catalog,
[01:18:07.570]I can give you one of those and you can see.
[01:18:09.450]We do make small ladders that can fit inside of vehicles
[01:18:13.390]that can then be opened to the right size ladder
[01:18:16.670]once they get where they need to go.
[01:18:18.870]The other question I have is,
[01:18:20.690]you mentioned the step stools.
[01:18:24.460]My wife has an interior painting business
[01:18:26.430]and what we've done as we're getting older is,
[01:18:29.370]we've gone to more work platforms,
[01:18:31.440]just 18-inch work platforms,
[01:18:32.810]because we can get to a lot of things that way.
[01:18:34.460]Do you have an aversion, from a safety perspective,
[01:18:36.580]to the work platforms?
[01:18:37.960]No, no.
[01:18:40.799]We're including the work platforms into the ANSI standard.
[01:18:45.120]That's something that has kind of jumped up
[01:18:47.790]and government departments move fairly slowly.
[01:18:53.430]OSHA was all happy at the last meeting
[01:18:55.740]because they're finally publishing
[01:18:57.640]a standard that they've been working on for 42 years.
[01:19:02.060]And I had to raise my hand and I said, did I mishear you?
[01:19:05.500]Did you say 42 years?
[01:19:07.130]And they said, yeah, we started writing this standard
[01:19:09.630]with typewriters and people smoking and taking dictation
[01:19:13.980]and we've had to transfer it to like seven different formats
[01:19:18.387]and, you know, every four or eight years,
[01:19:21.030]a different Commander-in-Chief comes in
[01:19:23.760]and sends us in a different direction.
[01:19:25.110]And so for 42 years, they've been
[01:19:27.000]working on the same standard.
[01:19:28.780]So it takes a while for us to build it up.
[01:19:30.990]But the platform and the step stool,
[01:19:34.620]you'll see a big increase in fiberglass step stools
[01:19:40.080]at your box stores or through your suppliers,
[01:19:42.500]Granger, Fastenal, somebody like that,
[01:19:46.270]are gonna be promoting a lot of
[01:19:48.480]folding, lightweight step stools
[01:19:50.810]that will get you into the right height.
[01:19:52.960]Now, for me, when I was younger,
[01:19:55.730]I'd jump in and out of the back of my pickup truck
[01:19:59.550]to get my work done on the weekends.
[01:20:01.120]Now, I can't jump out of the back of my pickup truck anymore
[01:20:04.430]or I'll shatter my legs when I land.
[01:20:07.490]So now I have a step stool, three-step folding stair,
[01:20:13.310]that I have to use to walk up and down
[01:20:15.300]and get in and out of my truck
[01:20:16.360]to prevent that stuff from happening.
[01:20:17.720]And I highly recommend that for any of you
[01:20:20.960]older, more seasoned workers
[01:20:24.380]because it's just no fun, jumping out of that pickup truck
[01:20:27.440]like it used to be, you know.
[01:20:28.860]But step stools is really, and that's,
[01:20:31.570]I'm glad Betsy asked me to include those in the presentation
[01:20:35.380]as it's a safer, lighter, and for the most part,
[01:20:41.570]you can get everything in this situation done,
[01:20:45.240]90% of what you need to do.
[01:20:46.680]And then if you need some really high work done,
[01:20:50.190]you can get, call the guy that has that ladder.
[01:20:53.477]So, step stools is really, and platforms,
[01:20:57.330]gives you a, you know, supports your foot,
[01:21:00.920]you're not standing on a step.
[01:21:03.190]So you take a lot of that balance out of it.
[01:21:06.710]Anything else?
[01:21:09.570]Four things: choose the right ladder for the job;
[01:21:13.060]make sure it's not Grandpa's ladder;
[01:21:14.570]make sure it's not a chair; make sure it is a ladder;
[01:21:18.110]make sure it's in good condition.
[01:21:19.410]If it has damage that wasn't there when we built it,
[01:21:22.720]you don't know what it's rated for.
[01:21:24.770]So use them in good condition.
[01:21:26.850]Set it up as flat as you can
[01:21:28.830]and always keep your body between the side rails.
[01:21:32.780]Don't do that Cirque du Soleil calculation in your head
[01:21:37.410]where you think you can grab.
[01:21:39.220]So many of the accident reports
[01:21:40.920]that I have to go and fill out
[01:21:42.840]start with, "it was the last thing I needed to reach
[01:21:45.910]and so I grabbed the side rail
[01:21:47.990]and reached out to get that one last thing."
[01:21:50.550]I mean, it's the start of three fourths of my reports,
[01:21:54.330]is, it was the one last thing they were reaching for
[01:21:57.460]and then the ladder went over.
[01:21:59.300]So climb down, move your ladder over,
[01:22:02.170]keep your body between the side rails.
[01:22:04.670]A lot of people are seriously, seriously injured.
[01:22:09.310]And we don't bounce like we used to, right?
[01:22:12.710]When we were kids, we could jump off the roof of the house
[01:22:14.770]and not get hurt.
[01:22:17.520]Doesn't happen that way anymore.
[01:22:18.980]So be safe, climb safe, make sure
[01:22:21.987]the people around you are safe
[01:22:22.820]and that you're providing the right tool for your workers.
[01:22:26.620]So thanks for your time.
[01:22:28.470]Thanks, Betsy, for setting this up.
[01:22:30.100]Please leave your surveys back here on the table.
[01:22:32.979]Thank you so much.
[01:22:34.237]Thank you.
[01:22:35.070](audience applauding)

The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!

You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.

Comments

0 Comments

Ladder & Step Stool Safety for Everyone

Description

Searchable Transcript

Comments icon comment

Related Channels

Comments