Intro Speaker:

Dave and Bacon's Safety Tales. The only industrial safety podcast that brings you common sense advice on job site safety, standards, regulations and industry best practices without putting you to sleep.

Dave White:

Alright. We are back again with another episode of Dave and Bacon's Safety Tales, coming to you live from the Quad Cities at HQ here.

Fred Radunzel:

Intergalactic. Not one of our other global sites. We have [crosstalk 00:00:35]

Dave White:

Once we have space force, maybe we'll have like something on the moon or something. Our lunar office is, I don't know, right by the man in the moon's eye or something like that.

Fred Radunzel:

There's got to be some high margin dollars in the safety equipment that's going to come from moon exploration or space exploration.

Dave White:

You've got to believe that you can mine something off of it. Dig holes in it.

Fred Radunzel:

Fred and Dave here with Quad City Safety. This episode presented by Quad City Safety. Safety, it's our life, it's your business.

Dave White:

Everybody's got commercials, so I mean, we're just out here hammering it the old-fashioned way.

Fred Radunzel:

Yes. Us, on the corner here, just putting our hat on the ground, asking for a few dimes. Today, the plan with the episode is to kind of talk about lock out/tag out, but first, Dave, did you have a good Father's Day?

Dave White:

Well, it's not bad.

Fred Radunzel:

What'd you do?

Dave White:

I finally tracked the kids down, but, you know, I got one that just graduated high school and one that's a junior and one going into eighth grade. The eighth grader's working on their ... She's going into eighth grade, but they do an annual trip. She was doing one of these ...

They run a shack to make money to pay for the trip or whatever, so I finally tracked her down about 6:30. I'm like, "If we're going to do a Father's Day dinner, we're running out of time here. Get in the car." But, no, it's good to kind of reflect.

As we talk about safety, I think that a lot of it is, we get into specific topics, but safety's only related to being there for the people that are important to you, because them son-of-a-bitches are going to need to eat at some point in time and they're going to require dollars.

Fred Radunzel:

Yep. Two and four at home, so I'm still pretty much in the stage of, mom says, "Go wake Dad up and tell him Happy Father's Day and hand him this. Hand him this card."

Dave White:

Yeah. One of my kids gave me ... I can't remember exactly what the card said, but it was making fun of me. They're to that age that ...

Fred Radunzel:

Where Dad's that corny old dude.

Dave White:

They've kind of figured out, "Yeah, I like him, but man, he's just a little off."

Fred Radunzel:

If you want to reach out to us or have any questions about the episode or past episodes or anything safety-related, you can reach out to us on our website at quadcitysafety.com. Dave and I are both on LinkedIn. You can hit us up there or any other pretty much social media. We'll get it and we'll get your question answered.

Dave White:

I decided to Google myself the other day and it's amazing what's out there. Like, the main thing of David White is there's like a brand of like laser beams.

Fred Radunzel:

That's a John Smith pretty much.

Dave White:

Yeah, but it was funny that the top search was some kind of laser thing. David White Lasers.

Fred Radunzel:

Fred Radunzel is a little bit more specific.

Dave White:

I'm sure.

Fred Radunzel:

If you Google Fred Radunzel, it's someone probably related to me, especially since I'm the third. So, it's either someone's dead ...

Dave White:

An obituary or ... I got you.

Fred Radunzel:

Or, related to this podcast now. That's starting to pop up under my name.

Dave White:

Is it?

Fred Radunzel:

Or, 2001 boys' tennis type of thing.

Dave White:

When you made ...

Fred Radunzel:

When I made that [inaudible 00:03:57] run to the 8th place in the State of Iowa. I was probably like the 47th best state in the country at tennis.

Dave White:

Well, Madison Keys was close.

Fred Radunzel:

That's true. That's Quad City.

Dave White:

I put that above 47th.

Fred Radunzel:

One state.

Dave White:

I'm not sure, I don't know, Montana. I'm sure that there's not a ton of talent in Montana.

Fred Radunzel:

Warmer weather though, isn't it? Like a longer, warm weather season? Montana? Does Montana have four seasons?

Dave White:

Are you kidding me?

Fred Radunzel:

I'm not kidding you.

Dave White:

Montana's way north of here.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, but it's way, way west.

Dave White:

Okay.

Fred Radunzel:

So, it doesn't matter?

Dave White:

It's worse.

Fred Radunzel:

It's worse? The winter's worse in Montana?

Dave White:

Yes.

Fred Radunzel:

Alright. I don't know. Fair enough. I look at Montana, as like Washington.

Dave White:

It's North Dakota bad.

Fred Radunzel:

Okay. Montana. They stink at tennis.

Dave White:

I'm sure North Dakota's pretty much sh**.

Fred Radunzel:

Alright. Enough of our bullsh**. Let's talk about some lockout/tag out stuff. First off, what is lockout/tag out? How do you kind of define it?

Dave White:

Well, again, you got to approach everything always from the hazard. Is lockout/tag out is a methodology to keep people from getting into stored, whether it's potential or kinetic energy and then facing the wrath of that.

Anytime you're trying to enter something that can crush you, smash you, cut you into pieces, all that stuff, that's where the methodology of lockout/tag out comes from is if somebody's going to repair or work on or needs to get in and maybe clean out a machine.

It's something that you have to stop and really think about, "Well, how do I know that somebody's not going to press the go button? How do I know that if I back these screws off, that there's not some pressure there? I'm going to flip this valve open? How do I know that it's not just charged with steam or hot water?"

The thought process around lockout/tag out is controlling stored, again, whether it's potential or kinetic energy is making sure that we're protecting the person that's going to be doing a task from the wrath of that.

Because when you talk about lockout/tag out accidents, those are where a lot of the awful pictures on the internet. That's what they come from, when you see somebody lopped off a hand or they're missing a finger.

Fred Radunzel:

Or, went through a wood chipper type of situation.

Dave White:

Yeah. There's all kinds of nastiness. It's usually going to take off something. A high level of deaths occur in the workplace around stuff, and a lot of times they're not always labeled to lockout/tag out because it may be a crushed by or how OSHA classifies incidences. You've got to kind of dig into it to figure out what lockout/tag out is.

But lockout/tag out is that methodology of locking out and tagging out so that you have put something that somebody has to key into or remove to get something turned on and you've tagged it so that it's specific to a person.

Fred Radunzel:

That's what I was going to say. If you've designated a person most likely, I know there's groups and stuff like that, and we can touch on that in a bit, but designated a person that's basically controlling the unexpected, energizing machine ...

Dave White:

It should be the guy that's getting in there to ...

Fred Radunzel:

His ass is on the line.

Dave White:

Yeah, he's the one that's going to be in harm's way.

Fred Radunzel:

Okay. We kind of touched on it, but sort of a why do I need to be concerned about lockout/tag out and you can be seriously like fatally injured.

Dave White:

I mean, there's still a ton of fatal injuries that happen. I mean, how to say, it can even be electrocutions. It can be crushed by. It can be losing, I can say, fingers. I mean, it's usually again, it's so wide open that that's why I sit there and go, when you talk about lockout/tag out, you've got to sit there and go, "Does this have energy that's somehow can hurt me?", and then come up with a process that takes ...

There's multiple steps to get it done right. I mean, maybe your lockout/tag out plan is literally like you have one punch press that runs off of electricity. Well, people may go, "Well, just unplug the thing."

Well, you've got to make sure that somebody can't plug it in, but then how do we know that that punch press, if I crawl in there to get whatever piece out of it, and it's a 10,000-pound press that's in an up position, how do I know when I get into it, all of a sudden, it's not going to go try to stamp another part out.

Fred Radunzel:

Right.

Dave White:

It's not always as easy as unplugging something. Sometimes, there are controls or something that you have to also do after that.

Fred Radunzel:

Okay. Some OSHA requirements on this thing. Employers must establish energy control procedures removing the energy supply from machines, train employees on the energy control program, including the safe application and then inspect these procedures periodically, at least annually to ensure that they're being followed and that they remain effective in preventing employee exposure to the hazardous energy.

You want to talk a little bit about like getting a program in place maybe? Like what all the procedures would include?

Dave White:

Well, you kind of got to work through it from when you're starting, the first thing that you need to do is really try to take an audit step or kind of answer the questions of an audit in like Master Lock and Brady. A lot of the guys, Prinzing's a brand of Brady, but there's a lot of companies out there that can help you through it.

First of all, you've got to have that written hazardous energy control program, lockout/tag out program, in place. As you're doing that is, you've got to figure out who are the people that are going to be responsible for it because it's a dynamic thing. It's not a static document, as you mentioned. It should be reviewed.

Then, you really kind of got to take that mite comb, like you're getting lice out of your kids' hair and go through your facility and try to really figure out everything that would need to be serviced, repaired, maintained, and then figure out what the steps to lock that stuff out is.

Fred Radunzel:

Right.

Dave White:

Then, a lot of times, it's going to take materials to lock it out. Then, you're going to have to basically designate people that who are able to lock a machine, lock them out, lock a machine out. That document that we started with is where you would kind of put the procedures on how to lock out.

I've seen some really kick ass things out there now that when you look at the procedure, it'll even have a picture of the machine and literally like arrows like, "Make sure you turn this switch off. Make sure you put this lock out hasp here."

Fred Radunzel:

Right. There's an orange one. This is what the orange one is for.

Dave White:

Yep, so that everybody understands, because even like you're saying, you can have different colored locks. Is it a personal lock? Maybe it's a system lock. Maybe it's a managerial lock. There's all kinds of different things that can go into it, but we've got in there and we've done the process of figuring out what needs to be locked out.

We figured out how we do it. We then make sure that we have the materials to lock it out, then we've gathered our people that are going to be users and we've trained them up on what, how, when, where and why. We've documented that training, that it's happened.

Fred Radunzel:

Probably standardized what you're going to use like in those things and having that clearly defined.

Dave White:

Yep.

Fred Radunzel:

Like whether it's this color does this or this particular lockout does this.

Dave White:

That should be in the program is what ... So, if somebody reads that program and all of a sudden, they see a red personal lock and there's two personal locks on a group, they can sit there and go, "Well, there's two people here." Then, they can walk up and look at the tags and go, "Well, Billy and Joe are working on this." So, they know that it's locked out. They know that they shouldn't touch it and they know ...

Let's say that they're like Joe Manager comes down and gets in somebody's ass like, "We need to be stamping widgets out. Why isn't this machine on?" Well, you can quickly identify, "Well, Joe, this is locked out and until we find where Joe is at, we can't start stamping widgets." Maybe Joe went home.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah.

Dave White:

Then, that gets into all little weird things that are, "Okay, so we don't know where Joe's at." So, some people would, "Well, just cut the lock. I'm pretty sure he left. It's after 3:00." Maybe he ...

Fred Radunzel:

Went to take a piss.

Dave White:

No, maybe he crawled up into the machine or something.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, that's true.

Dave White:

Somebody energizes it and all of a sudden, bloody widgets start erupting out of the machine. "Oh, crap."

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, there's Joe.

Dave White:

There's Joe.

Fred Radunzel:

Or, as I was saying, he went to go to the bathroom and he got caught up for a while. He got stuck for a while and now you energize the machine and Joe comes back. He thinks he's still got you locked out and he starts working.

Dave White:

Yep, correct. Then, there's a lot of other topics, like if it's multiple shift facility. All kinds of little things like that.

Fred Radunzel:

Yep. I think there's still a couple of other ... We'll get into some ...

Dave White:

A lot of it also is like we sit there and said, it's the initial work that's big. Identifying what the machines are and making sure that you've tested it, meaning, going back to that punch press, is okay, "Yeah, we pulled the plug out of the wall, so that should alleviate it," but all of a sudden, we go up and we hit the button and it still has that one last drop on it. Aw, sh**. We didn't really think about that.

Fred Radunzel:

That's kind of where I had my next note was about what workers need to do before they begin service or maintenance on something. You've got prepare. You've got to prepare for the shutdown, be like, "Okay, from this time to this time," so that way, I don't know, if everybody's kind on the same page, "Hey, this device is going to be shut down at this time because of this reason."

Shut it down. Disconnect. Isolate the machine from energy source. Apply your lockout or tag out device and then just what you're saying, release, restrain or render it safe to use.

Dave White:

Yeah.

Fred Radunzel:

Then, verify the isolation, de-energization. Is that right?

Dave White:

Yep.

Fred Radunzel:

De-energization?

Dave White:

That sounds good to me.

Fred Radunzel:

Of the machine.

Dave White:

T-I-O-N.

Fred Radunzel:

Yep. Then, what do you think about when it's time to remove their lockout device afterwards? So, we talked a little bit about what they do before. Now, what's kind of the procedure afterwards?

Dave White:

Well again, it depends on what's in that document because going in it back, is maybe we have multiple shifts. So, we've got multiple people on here, on the lockout, but we're changing shifts.

So, we may have a control lock on there so that shift one goes to shift two. Is shift one ends and the machine's not fixed? We don't want everybody to just take their lock off and head for the hills.

You would have a transfer lock, which would keep that machine locked out from shift one to shift two. To keep people, again, that second shift that comes in there, to go, "Wait a second. This thing, I still can't turn this thing on."

Fred Radunzel:

I would also say that you probably need to inspect that machine to make sure that you've put everything back together. You took the thing apart. You de-energized it. You took it apart, now it's got to be back together before you crank that power back on.

Dave White:

Should be.

Fred Radunzel:

That would be the goal. Would be inspect it ...

Dave White:

But, that should be in that procedure.

Fred Radunzel:

Okay.

Dave White:

That lockout procedure. Again, what the energy sources are. What steps you need to do to de-energize it. Again, to get that potential, any stored energy out of it.

Fred Radunzel:

Right.

Dave White:

Whatever that may be.

Fred Radunzel:

I'd say, looking out for your homies. That's going to be another thing because you've de-energized the machine that's grinding stuff up and then all of a sudden, it's not moving and somebody else sees it's not moving and they're working in there. So, it's being like, "Hey! Getting ready to crank this baby back on. It's time to make the donuts."

Dave White:

We need to make donuts.

Fred Radunzel:

Yep. One thing that I had down that I wanted to ask you about, see if you had an opinion, like what do you do if you can't lockout like a piece of equipment? Does that become more of a tag out issue if you can't use a lockout device on like a certain piece of equipment? Is that when you have to get into tagging things out?

Dave White:

Well, I mean, yes-and-no. I mean, loosely having equipment that's broken tagged for not being used, can be part of that because ...

Fred Radunzel:

Otherwise, where does tagging things out come into play?

Dave White:

Well, tagging is just letting people know that it's a problem and then who's assigned to that is really what you're trying to communicate in the tag out portion. Lockout, there's so many lockout devices today that I've seen that. Let's say, probably doesn't lock something out 100%, but let's say you have a forklift that needs to be locked out.

They have steering wheel covers. There are like, how to say, glorified bags that go over the top of things. There are things for whether it is a valve or a plug or a circuit breaker.

Fred Radunzel:

Just cover that up with something red.

Dave White:

They've designed so many things. There's so many lockout devices that ... Is there probably something out there? I mean, like one of the ones that I like that they have out there is it's like this six foot of wire rope off of it and you can wrap it in and through things to make sure that somebody can't turn something on and you can pull it back through.

I mean, they've thought a lot about this stuff. I mean, heck, they have ones that you can just walk up to that light switch over there and apply a lockout.

Fred Radunzel:

It sneaks on there and it makes so you can't move it pretty much.

Dave White:

Yep.

Fred Radunzel:

But even like the steering wheel covers. Technically, could somebody turn that thing on, fire it up, and drive it with the steering wheel cover on there?

Dave White:

That's the whole thing is lockout/tag out, I mean, any dumb ass with some wire cutters or bolt cutters can go in there and ...

Fred Radunzel:

Snap that thing off.

Dave White:

Yeah.

Fred Radunzel:

And, energize it.

Dave White:

Yeah. I mean, but, I'd say, that's bad.

Fred Radunzel:

Right.

Dave White:

If you got people that are doing that, I mean, obviously you haven't gone through the training of, if this is on here and you don't know what to do, do nothing.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah. How about ... We might have touched on this in a different episode in one of the Q&As, but touch back on it. What if you are using outside contractors to come in? They're still going to have to follow your procedures, right?

Dave White:

Yeah, they should follow your lockout/tag out procedure.

Fred Radunzel:

Okay. What about ... We talked a little bit about group lockout. Do you want to touch a little bit on that? Like, kind of how that procedure goes? Mostly that every single person would have a lock that's working on that equipment?

Dave White:

Let's say that we have a group of six things that need to be locked out on this device so that it won't crunch bodies up, right?

Fred Radunzel:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dave White:

Then, we take the six keys for that device and then we would ... I mean, they'll be called a lockout box or there's different ways that you do it, and then you would take those keys, and put it in the lockout box. Then, everybody would put their personal lock on that lockout box so that we can say there's six points that need to be locked out. We'd lock those out.

Now, we're going to lock out the machine with each individual person so that as we go backwards, we can't really, how to say? We can't re-energize a machine until ...

Fred Radunzel:

Dave and Fred and Jim and Bill have all signed off on it pretty much.

Dave White:

Yeah. We've gone through a set protocol to say, "Yeah, we've done everything we deem necessary not to crunch up a body."

Fred Radunzel:

Okay.

Dave White:

I hope that answers what you were looking for.

Fred Radunzel:

Yep. Then, let's talk a little bit about the annual review of the lockout/tag out procedure.

Dave White:

It should be an annual review, but it should be, I'm going to say, there should be a caveat in there that says, "Hey man, if we bring something new in here, we don't need to wait until the annual review to put a lockout/tag out." Again, any time ... It's a dynamic document so anytime we're bringing new equipment in, maybe changing a process, we need to make sure that it accounts for that.

Then, the annual review is just somebody going through there and making sure that everything's still the way it was before.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah.

Dave White:

Because people love to change stuff or augment it. So, walking up there and going, "How do you do, what you do?" "Well, every day, I need to blow this thing out. So, to lock it out, I pull this out and I do this." Having somebody that's a second set of eyes, maybe trained up on the equipment or whatever, can go, "Well, we got a problem here."

Fred Radunzel:

A lot of times, it's the people are changing, so you might not do it the same way that I do it and I might be acting a little bit differently, so if you update that procedure with your people, kind of as new people start, and making sure that that new employee that started knows the procedures, been trained on it, knows what his responsibility is in the program.

Dave White:

People typically want to go home, so I've never understood it, but a lot of time, safety professionals in management will get it in their head that they know everything. A lot of times, if you just walk up to Joe Worker Bee and just go, "Hey man, what are you scared of?" They will tell you stuff that you're like, "Wow! I didn't even know that."

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah. I think that's pretty good information. How about you got any thoughts on like preparing for an inspection? A lockout/tag out inspection. Like what like a safety person would need to do to be ready. I think we've touched on a lot of that, but that's just another note that I had.

Dave White:

I think most of it is, you just have to ... You really need to do those audit steps where I was talking about. Where you get the document out and really kind of go through it with the mite comb.

You need to make sure that your training's adequate. You need to make sure that you have lockout devices. You need to make sure that they're readily available, if not even ...

Some people have like one little lunchbox full of stuff, but where's the lunchbox? Well, if this one device has a single lockout device that's needed, why isn't that in close proximity of the equipment that would be used to lock it out.

Fred Radunzel:

Okay. We're going to move on. We'll stay on the topic of lockout/tag out, but we'll move into our dumb ass of the week segment. This can be multiple dumb asses because I want to talk a little bit about some common, like shortcuts that people make and why they'll be detrimental to worker safety.

So, like duplicate keys. Like handing out keyed-alike things where somebody's got the same key for this certain lock and two people can handle it, or, somebody's got a master key.

Dave White:

Yes. I understand why sometimes people have that stuff, but a lot of times, it just negates the reason that you're doing it.

Fred Radunzel:

It's stupid.

Dave White:

I can see like if it was a system lock, meaning a system lock meaning we're going to use it lock out a piece of equipment and there's six points. I can see that those six locks could be keyed alike because you don't want to sit there like the old school janitor that would fucking have this key ring that he would pull out and have 50 keys and he's sorting through them trying to figure out which one goes to which.

I can understand that in a keyed alike, in a system, but to me, anything that is a personal lock has to be keyed different. Because otherwise, maybe somebody doesn't mean to, but all of a sudden, they take off the wrong lock.

Let's do that instance of, it's the end of the day and somebody takes off the wrong lock. Billy's lock's in there. Billy's actually in the machine, but somebody took Billy's lock off, so it looks like it's Wayne. It's like, "No, man. I know I saw him cut that. We got to get this going."

Granted, that's a failure in the protocol, but that whole personal protective equipment being that lock, failed because it wasn't the right thing.

Fred Radunzel:

You're in a smaller facility where maybe we're sharing a lock and there's multiple keys. "Don't you have the lock? Go back there and get the lock. The one lock that we have." So, you throw that on and you and I both have a key to it. I don't know where you're at and all of a sudden, we fire that thing back up.

I'm sure it becomes a problem in larger places, but I can really see that being an issue like in a smaller place where yeah, you only got a couple of different locks. They all look the same, and you lockout every piece of equipment that you're working on with the same lock.

Keep each other safe. Yeah, sharing locks seems like it could be a potential problem there with pretty dangerous consequences.

Dave White:

Yeah, when you look at it. I mean, they don't go bad. I mean, so you're looking at a $10 investment. That's a really cheap insurance policy. I think that's, just to go back to ... We've gone through this before, but I think it's good to reiterate it is, when you're buying personal protective equipment, you have already said, we're somehow putting ourselves in harms' way, so we're going to try to minimize that the best we can.

So, it's kind of like an insurance policy where we're trying to minimize the full onslaught or full damage. It's pretty cheap insurance.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, yeah. Alright, cool. Let's move on to a few questions for this week. If anybody else has got any questions, earlier in this episode, I kind of give you the way to get ahold of us, so please ask questions if you have any. We'll talk about them on the show.

Number one, should I tether my tools even when no one is working underneath me?

Dave White:

In a dropped object culture, there's a couple of different thought processes out there that say, "Yes." Probably the biggest one is, when you're working in heights and let's say that you ... A lot of times, people deem a zone where, "Hey man, there are people working over here. Don't be here because things can fall from the floor above or whatever."

Well, if I'm the guy putting a fastener in or doing a job that requires that tool and I drop the tool, what do I have to do? I have to go retrieve that tool.

Most tools that are dropped multiple stories are not really good tools afterwards, so it's kind of a two-pronged process meaning one is, yeah, tethering tools is to keep it from busting somebody's head open, but I think you have to compliment it with the fact that if that tool tether, just from a cost benefits standpoint ...

If I tether my drill and I drop my drill and I don't have to go buy a new Milwaukee drill, it more than pays for it. So, it's lower cost to ownership on the tool. I guess what I'm saying is, sometimes that I think we get into looking at, "There's nobody here. Why would I do that?" Maybe there's somebody there part of the time.

Fred Radunzel:

Or, what are you dropping it on too? I mean, protecting the tool, but what if it falls on whatever piece of equipment that you have down there. You drop it on some $10,000 piece of equipment. It smashes that. You drop a drill from 40 feet in the air and it hits something.

Dave White:

I think too often people approach it from the standpoint of well, there's nobody going to be ... I'm working on, I don't know, maybe like a cell tower and there's nobody. I'm the only guy there. If I drop it, I mean, it's going to hit the ground.

Well, I'm a chubby guy. I'm not going to want to climb all the way down a cell phone tower to get whatever. I'm sure they have some weird tools that I don't even know what they are.

Fred Radunzel:

For sure. Yep. How about what are benefits of an SRL versus a retractable to kind of justify the price difference?

Dave White:

Well, you talking about personal versus ...

Fred Radunzel:

Yes. I think I'm guessing it'd be talking like a six foot retractable versus a six foot lanyard. One's $125 and one is $35. So, what's the advantage of going with one over the other to justify that price difference.

Dave White:

Well, the first one is if you're not working at about 18-1/2 feet, which you really got to think about it. 18-1/2 feet, walk around your facility. There's only a few things that you're doing where you're over 18-1/2 feet. When you look at whether it's general industry or construction, you're required to tie off at four or six feet.

Well, if you've got a six-foot shock-absorbing lanyard, there's no way that that thing does anything for you until you're 18-1/2 feet. I think that the case for ...

Fred Radunzel:

Because you've got the device. You got how far the device stretches when you fall because it's going to fully expand. Then, you got the height that you are.

Dave White:

Yeah, you got fall clearance. Fall clearance on an SRL versus just a shock-absorbing lanyard, is completely different. I think you're going to see lanyards continue to go away. They're never going to go all the way away because people are sometimes cheap.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah.

Dave White:

They caught up with some of the technology things that were problems in the past like you would have people that would try to move and they would catch and maybe make somebody ...

Fred Radunzel:

Trip.

Dave White:

... trip or fall. But, as they continue to do them, so I guess basically, there's not that much difference in cost. Really not. I mean, when you're sitting there talking a single leg to a single leg, you're probably maybe twice the price, but we're going from base price of a $60 to a base price of $120 and you don't have as many things to sit there and think about.

Fred Radunzel:

Right.

Dave White:

Because in most situations, you probably need both of them. If you're using a shock-absorbing lanyard, there's probably something that you're doing under 18-1/2 foot that you should think about.

Fred Radunzel:

Also, you got to figure, how quick is that retractable stop? If you fall and you're in a shock-absorbing lanyard, you're going to take a fall. You're still taking a fall. Instead of taking an 18" or 24" fall in a retractable, you're taking that 18-foot fall.

Dave White:

That's a great point. You do limit ... How to say? You do increase the percentage of times that you'll be able to self-rescue.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah.

Dave White:

You haven't fallen below grade. I mean, when you sit there and think, "I've fallen 16 feet. You're hanging something." I'm sure you're not the lucky guy that they walk up and everybody's laughing at you and they can reach up and get ahold of you and cut the lanyard and let you down the last two feet.

Most of the time, you're literally hanging off a bridge, just sitting there, and they have time to set up the news. They still haven't figured out how they're going to get you. You're still just sitting there swinging.

Fred Radunzel:

They told me to put on my harness real tight, but I didn't get it on quite tight enough today.

Dave White:

Yeah.

Fred Radunzel:

Hopefully, I don't sneak out of this thing.

Dave White:

As you're on the news, sitting there dangling like a ...

Fred Radunzel:

I don't know. Were you here in the Quad Cities when my dad worked for the Thunder, the basketball team. Were you here when the Thunder was here?

Dave White:

I think they were here. The first year I got here was, I think, their last year. So, that would have been '96?

Fred Radunzel:

No. It was a while because they wrapped up shop about 2001.

Dave White:

Did they? I mean, I remember going to one or two games.

Fred Radunzel:

So, they had a mascot that was Thor. It was Thor, the god of thunder, so it wasn't the Marvel Thor. It was like the rip-off. It looked like a caveman with a big beard Thor. They lowered him down on the cables to come down. His thing got stuck. So, all Thor, about 6'5", 300 pounds, just up there hanging. When they brought him down ...

It made that come to mind, but third question, I'm positive this is something that we've touched on a little bit before in a respiratory episode. So, we can just hit it real fast. Do disposable respirators need to be fit-tested?

Dave White:

You said the key word is respirator. So, typically when you say a respirator, yes, because it's going to be a NIOSH. Again, people look at the box. If you see a NIOSH approved device, anywhere on that box, anywhere on the box, you should fit-test it.

Typically, if there's two straps on it, that's another way to kind of tell. If you look at the box and it says, nuisance mask. Typically, if there's two straps on it, that's another way to kind of tell. If you look at the box and it says, nuisance mask. Notice it didn't say respirator, it said, nuisance mask or dust mask, and you don't see that NIOSH.

Typically, it's going to be a one strap, but it's kind of like, you might as well go to Walmart and buy a red bandanna and do it like cowboy 18, 100-style. It's the same thing. You're not guaranteed any filtration or protection.

Fred Radunzel:

If you're doing it for a reason, if they're wearing this piece of equipment for a reason, then most likely you need to be fit-tested. If you're doing it, because they're in their basement, and they're sleeping up.

Dave White:

[crosstalk 00:39:16]. A plane next to you or whatever, yeah, I get that.

Fred Radunzel:

That wraps that one up. So, two for Thursday here, we're going to take on a couple of more dumb asses of the week. These guys aren't safety-related, but I saw two stories that came out this week, in the same week. That was like, "What is going on here?" It's our dumb criminals.

So, the first one I got that I just saw yesterday, the headline is, Man with Gun, Forehead Tattoo, charged with illegally possessing a firearm. I'll show you a picture. There's the man, right there. He's basically got a, what? Smith & Wesson, like tattooed right between his eyes on his forehead.

Dave White:

Oh my goodness! What's funny is, it's got an extended magazine coming out of it.

Fred Radunzel:

He slammed his Toyota Camry into a power pole on Saturday night. Firefighters saw him toss a handgun into the grass. They charged him with driving under a suspended license, driving too fast for conditions, and unlawful carrying of a firearm. He's prohibited from owning a gun because of a rap sheet that includes multiple narcotics convictions.

He isn't shy about his fondness for guns. He's got a tattoo of a handgun prominently displayed on his forehead.

Dave White:

Right above his right eyebrow.

Fred Radunzel:

The police posted something to their Facebook page noting that, "The real weapon was placed in property in evidence." They didn't take the forehead tattoo from him. That was kind of number one of ... Try not to get arrested for having a gun, if you have a gun tattooed on your forehead.

Number two, I don't know if you heard about this one, but a guy called the cops over being sold bad drugs. He took his meth down to the station, so this one said, 49-year-old in Florida contacted the office to complain about a bad reaction he had after smoking meth.

He alleged that he wanted to press charges against the person who sold him the bad drugs. In an effort to assist Kelly, the detectives told him they would gladly test any of the remaining meth to ensure there was nothing wrong with the drug.

The guy showed up. He took them up on the offer. Showed up to the police office, so the officers could test his drugs. The police informed him that he had purchased meth, just as he intended, and he was then arrested and booked on charges of possession of Methamphetamine. Put on a $5,000 bond.

Following the bizarre event, the sheriff's office decided to have a little fun and they said they'll continue to offer a free service to anyone who wishes to have their drugs tested for purity. Their detectives are always ready to assist anyone who believes they were misled in their illegal drug purchase.

Can you imagine being so high on meth that you're like, "Something's wrong with this meth. I've got to take this to the cops and have them check it out."

Dave White:

Can you tell me how pure this is?

Fred Radunzel:

Yep. A couple of dumb asses of the week, so you can hit the music on that one again.

Dave White:

There you go.

Fred Radunzel:

That's it for us today. We really appreciate everyone listening to us. Definitely reach out to us with any comments. Tell the new people that haven't heard of us, tell your friends, family, to give us a listen. We really appreciate growing this audience and really having you guys kind of hang out with us for 45 minutes.

We can make you safer. It makes us feel good about ourselves, so appreciate you listening. We'll be back next week. Visit us at quadcitysafety.com, if you need a fix, until then. But, we'll talk to you next week. Alright, thanks guys. Bye.

Intro Speaker:

Thanks for listening in to Dave and Bacon's Safety Tales, brought to you by Quad City Safety. Send us your questions on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter at Quad City Safety, #safetytales or email them to fred@quadcitysafety.com. He's the guy keeping this mess of a show in line. And, if you like the show, please rate and review us on iTunes. It's a kick ass way to show that you care about safety.