Serious falls prompt WorkCover safety warning

Businesses and workers are being urged to take extreme care while working at heights following a number of serious incidents in the past few months.

One worker died and others were seriously injured in separate incidents across NSW, informed WorkCover NSW General Manager John Watson.

“Under work health and safety laws, workplaces must have safety systems in place to prevent workers falling from heights,” Watson said.

“Businesses must provide workers with information, instruction, training and supervision in risk control procedures. 

“Workers are required to follow the procedures set out by the business, which in turn must provide a safe workplace by identifying foreseeable fall hazards and taking action to manage those risks.”

A person conducting a business or undertaking must undertake adequate measures to protect against the risk of a fall by following the following hierarchy of controls where reasonably practicable to do so:

• Carry out the work on the ground or on a solid construction.
• Provide a fall prevention device such as a secure fence, edge protection, working platforms or covers.
• Provide a work positioning system (any plant or structure, other than a temporary work platform, that safely holds a worker in a work position).
• Provide a fall arrest system such as an industrial safety net, a catch platform or a safety harness system.

Watson says a number of recent falls could have been avoided. The incidents include:

• A fitter in Wetherill Park suffered serious head injuries when he fell three metres from the boom of a mobile crane he had mounted to conduct repairs.
• A worker sustained serious damage including fractures to his skull, eye socket, hip, pelvis, elbow and wrist after falling eight metres through a skylight when conducting work on a solar hot water system on the roof of a commercial building in Byron Bay.
• A labourer/boilermaker died in Newcastle when he fell 10 metres from an elevated work platform while not wearing a harness.
• A bricklayer in Sylvania, in the Sutherland Shire, lost his balance while building a wall and fell more than three metres, sustaining a concussion, fractured spine and broken ribs.
• A tree lopper in Alstonville, west of Ballina, broke his leg and injured his hand and wrist when he fell after a tree limb struck him.
• A volunteer in Nimbin, west of Byron Bay fell 1.5 metres from a ladder while helping build a shed, sustaining injuries to his shoulder and skull.