Tool Tethers & Dropped Objects: Rope and Duct Tape Don’t Cut It (Safety Tales Podcast S3 Episode 10)

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.

Fred Radunzel:

Alright, welcome to another episode of Dave and Bacon's Safety Tales. We're here for another episode to talk some safety with you guys, and tell it like it really is out there. So, what's going on with your life? Anything good?

Dave White:

Actually, I went back to this year for ... I was in a fraternity in college down at Murray State University, Sigma Pasa. We had our 50th anniversary of the charter of the fraternity. So-

Fred Radunzel:

You did some of the.

Dave White:

No, no, nothing like that.

Fred Radunzel:

None of that? Not stomping the yard?

Dave White:

No, nobody ... Nothing crazy. I mean basically it was ... Had it not been for Facebook, I would have no idea what ... It would have been like, oh my God, you have two kids that are in high school? It'd been that, but it was, I guess at least with Facebook I was able to have some conversations where it was like, yeah, Shawn, I know that you work at the bank here. You got a daughter. She looks to be like 13 or something? What's up? And you know, so you were at least warmed up for a conversation, but there's never, never a point in life that I would take that over, you know, actually breaking bread, or having a beer with somebody, or just kicking back and, you know, lived a lot of stupid old times.

My girlfriend did go with us, so she heard a bunch of stupid shit that-

Fred Radunzel:

Stuff she probably assumed anyways.

Dave White:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think it probably was earth shattering to her by any stretch of the imagination, but you know. Got to hear some good old, you know, back then ... And it's funny because when you look at the Greek system, you know, Animal House, the movie came out in like the '60s, or '70s, or something like that.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, I'd say the '70s.

Dave White:

So, that was really about Greek life in the '60s, you know, so it's been logically kind of less hazing and less illegal activities per se to where these kids are listening to some of the stuff that we would do and they're like ... They are not even allowed to like ... For them to have alcohol at something like-

Fred Radunzel:

Right.

Dave White:

We couldn't on university property have alcohol in a room with them. It's like, what do you think we're going ... We gonna hold them down and make them, you know ... These kids are, you know, and a lot of them at Marion, they're old enough to drink, but the rules. So we've made more rules to make everything hard. So I didn't break any rules, but it kind of makes me, you know, sometimes when things are not in the right place for the right thing.

Fred Radunzel:

We did ... Grandpa came in, my father-in-law came in. We did some fishing this weekend, so two and four year old went out, and we threw a pole out in the yard. Or not in the yard, in the pond.

Dave White:

Okay, I was getting ready to say-

Fred Radunzel:

We do have a nice pond that's like five minutes from our house, so I walk down there and throw a couple in. Fishing's a lot of fun when you catch stuff. I feel like every time I fished when I was a kid, it was like throw it in there and I'm going to sit here for two hours and catch nothing. Reel it back in, and then okay, I've been out here three hours now, and I caught one fish. But this was like threw the pole in, in five minutes you got a bite and reel it in.

So, my son caught three fish, and my daughter caught two.

Dave White:

Do you know what kind of fish they were?

Fred Radunzel:

Out there like two hours. I mean, [inaudible 00:03:51] bluegill. There we go. It came to me, came to me faster than what I thought.

Dave White:

Okay.

Fred Radunzel:

So all bluegill.

Dave White:

Well, that's a funner fish for a kid.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah. Yeah. About the size of my hand. Hold them up, and they held up the string. And first it was disgusting, and then it was, I'm touching the fish. And it got to be a pretty fun time. So they both did good.

But today. You brought up rules, that there's add more and more rules. And here you go. Perfect segway into we brought in one of the guys from [Ergodyne 00:04:22] ... Actually, it's going to happen later this week, so I'm talking about something that's going to be in the future. Because there's a new [ANSI 00:04:30], you call it a standard? Is it still a standard?

Dave White:

Yeah. So, ANSI-

Fred Radunzel:

On tool tethering, right?

Dave White:

Yeah, when we talk about standards, see there's different ones that are out there, and I think a lot of times we get mixed up on what they are and what they mean. So like when you have an ANSI standard, it's usually about around how something's made and how you test it to see if it does something. So for instance, like when you talk about fall protection, you got ANSI359, and then there's I think it's over 20 now subsets.

Fred Radunzel:

Right.

Dave White:

So, but then one subset will talk about lanyards, and it'll say if it's stamped with an ANSI mark, that means that it's been tested to this set of specifications. So anybody that sells this, and the next guy that sells it, if they're both, you know, for instance, ANSI359 dot whatever, then they're both been tested and should react the same way. There may be different features and benefits.

Fred Radunzel:

Right.

Dave White:

But when you talk about that, it's testing, you know, dummies and known load situations to make sure that fall arresting forces that are under certain specifications. So, the new tool tethering standard that's come out is kind of the rules on how you use something. Because theoretically, tool tethering, if you didn't have ... If you didn't define it, could be okay, I've got some baler twine and duct tape. I'm going to put this around my wrist-

Fred Radunzel:

Got this duct taped to my tool belt.

Dave White:

And then I'm gonna duct tape that screwdriver, you know, to the other end of the baler twine, and I've got tool tethering.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah.

Dave White:

So, it goes back in there and goes, well, how big? How much weight? How far should it drop? How much weight, or how much force should you be allowed to maybe tie off on a person?

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, you're burying the lead here. We got an interview coming up with the guys from Ergodyne. That's probably what he's going to talk about.

Dave White:

Well, probably, but I'm just trying to lay out the ... When we talk about standards is some people, you get mixed up on usually OSHA will say, hey you need-

Fred Radunzel:

Versus a rule.

Dave White:

You'll need fall protection. And when you use fall protection, buy fall protection that does ANSI359.

Fred Radunzel:

Right.

Dave White:

So there's still, you know, there's loosely some things that say when you're working in heights that you're responsible for not dropping stuff. There's dropped objects. But there's nothing that really defines, okay, when you do that, how do you do that?

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah. You're wearing a cut resistant glove. It's not an oven mitt.

Dave White:

Yeah.

Fred Radunzel:

Right. So, there's got to be something that says this is what that actually means. So. Alright, well cool. We'll get into the interview here with the guys from Ergodyne, and I will catch back up with you afterwards. Thanks.

Dave White:

Okay, here we go. We got Craig [Marrey 00:07:27] from Ergodyne here, and you know, we're kind of on the whole dropped objects, objects at height kind of thing. So Craig, why don't you tell us about yourself and Ergodyne. Give us a little overview of what that is.

Craig:

Sure. Thanks, Dave. Yeah, so I'm the regional sales manager for the Midwest. Been working with Ergodyne for about eight years. Initially started as inside sales and been doing the regional [crosstalk 00:07:51]-

Dave White:

They're letting you out of the building now, huh?

Craig:

Yeah. That's right.

Dave White:

Right on.

Craig:

Kind of fun getting out on the job site and seeing what these workers are actually facing. You get to some of these job sites, and you're like, wow, I'm surprised there's not more injuries.

Dave White:

Yeah, absolutely.

Craig:

So, at Ergodyne, we're a safety manufacturer. Been in business 35 years. We're headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota. Initially invented the back support. But you know, a big kick right now is the objects at heights category.

Dave White:

So, you know, we were talking and you had a story about a recent job site that you were on that really kind of delves into the meat and potatoes of why we're doing this, and what people are not doing. So tell me about that.

Craig:

Exactly. I was at a job site. They were building apartment complex, and you know, we were in the building. And I was following the safety manager, and we walked out of the building. And once we got outside of the building, and it was open on top of us, we could see that it was sectioned off. And, a worker came by and said, hey, you guys gotta ... This is supposed to be sectioned off. We just had a piece of rebar drop. And I'm like, oh. I looked up. I'm like, let's get the heck out of here. So, it just kinda goes to show that yeah, not all the rules are being followed. Sometimes there are no rules, and you really got to be paying attention out there.

Dave White:

Yeah. Well, I mean when you look at it realistically, there's loose interpretations when OSHA looks at it. So, you've got obviously 1926 probably does a little bit better job of explaining that, versus 1910. But how ... Tell me a little bit on those standards. You know as ... Because it kind of refers to, you know, just generically dropped objects. It doesn't do like when you talk fall protection, there's a lot of rules in there. There's loosely writ, and we'll get into the new ANSI standard, but it's usually cited general duty, right, if somebody has an issue?

Craig:

Yeah. And general duty clause is kind of the main way where someone could potentially get caught because it basically says if there's a known hazard, you should be stopping or doing something to fix that. But then you know, there's the general industrial standard and the construction standards that you've talked about with scaffolding, and it basically says you should be stopping tools from dropping. But that's very loose. It gives you no instructions on how to actually do that, and really there's no base underneath that of testing, designing, and how to implement that program.

Dave White:

So there's some, obviously there's a lot of people being hurt, otherwise OSHA wouldn't care. There would be no push for it. So domestically, what kind of rights do we have? What's happening? How many ... There's deaths, I'm sure. I mean, you read about them all the time. How many deaths in the United States?

Craig:

Yeah. So when you look at all the fatalities from the U.S. on construction sites, I mean, dropped objects is 5% of the fatalities in a year.

Dave White:

Okay.

Craig:

So, you know, most recent stats from 2016 from objects falling, it's 255 deaths per year in the U.S.

Dave White:

That's amazing.

Craig:

Yeah. So you think of per state, you know, that's over five per state. Obviously different densities, but that kind of hits home to show that there's a lot of fatalities.

Dave White:

Yeah.

Craig:

And then, you know, just injuries, there's almost 48,000 injuries from dropped objects every year. And that's just what's talked about. I mean, there's a lot of injuries that, you know, really are from a dropped object. They might not get advocated-

Dave White:

Well, like you were talking earlier. That piece of rebar that hit the ground. It got recorded nowhere.

Craig:

No.

Dave White:

I mean it just, thank God, nobody was standing there.

Craig:

Exactly.

Dave White:

So yeah.

Craig:

Same thing when you look at tools. .Like if you're a company that repairs tools, a lot of these tools come in and you look at them and you know, I'm sure a large percent of those tools were actually dropped.

Dave White:

Yeah. And that's one of the things that I know when I've talked to our customers about it is I go, there's two ways to look at it. Even if you don't really buy into the safety aspect of it, which is hard to believe that some people won't, is if you look at the replacement cost on a lot of the tools, a lot of the ... Obviously, if you drop a tool, you're going to have to go retrieve said tool. Where is it at? Is it damaged? There's a lot of cost tied up in that. So, a lot of what you can do from a dropped object is, if you're trying to explain it to management, sometimes they'll look at it and go, that's not a big deal. But if you can explain it, well, if we save one drill, we've completely paid for, you know, all the tethering that we would need for a person. Sometimes it's easier to explain it that way. You know, I think. So, tell me-

Craig:

Yeah, and when you look at other costs, I mean, obviously fatalities are the worst.

Dave White:

There's no doubt about it.

Craig:

And there's cost. [crosstalk 00:12:45]

Dave White:

I think a body costs you like $1.4 million these days.

Craig:

Yep. Yep. Some of these job sites though, if you drop a tool and break a water pipe in some of these big facilities, that might be shut down for the rest of the day. So, you could almost cost more than a fatality for some of those.

Dave White:

There's no doubt about that. So, okay, tell me kind of let's ... We don't have to ... I know that standards can be, oh my God, they can be boring. But why don't you tell me what the new standard that come out, what it's name is and kind of how it operates.

Craig:

Yeah. So, it's the ANSI ISCA 121 standard.

Dave White:

Okay.

Craig:

And you know, with some standards there are revisions or new ones. This one's completely new. There was really nothing in this category in the past, so really exciting to see that everybody jumped on board and got this pushed through and published. So, really what it is, it's a manufacturer's testing, labeling, designing, and performance standard. So, it's a voluntary end user standard. But really, it's for the safety manufacturers that develop and design these tools and tool lanyards and systems. Because right now was the wild west.

You know, I was at a job site, and there was a tool lanyard that it said holds approximately 110 pounds. Which approximately, that word should never be with fall protection, or harnesses, or anything. So this really goes down and says, alright, if you're going to have a tool lanyard, you have to design it a certain way. So for example, a design might be a locking carabiner. So, that's one piece, labeling. So, it has to specifically have the label that says weight rated to x amount of pounds. So, that's one of the standards. So, also the performance, you know-

Dave White:

I mean, like you say, I mean, when you look out there ... I've seen it a lot where the tool tether is duct tape and rope, which is a bad idea.

Craig:

Yeah. You look at that, there's no testing. I mean one piece might be 10 pounds, the other piece might be two pounds, so that should be a two pound solution. And there's really nothing that goes into that.

Dave White:

So what other ... So you kinda mentioned the labeling requirements, requirements for closures. What other things are kind of hit in this?

Craig:

You know-

Dave White:

What other things are kind of hit in this?

Craig:

You know, inside of that there's also the drop test. So, when they drop a tool lanyard in a tool, that test, it's usually a two to one safety factor. So if it says 10 pounds, it's actually a 20 pound test. So they drop that multiple times as well. And that's, you know, in cold environments and in warm environments as well. But then you look at what is actually tested, and you have active controls and passive controls. So this only talks about active controls. So that would be an actual tool lanyard or a bucket that's actually preventing the tool from dropping.

Passive control, such as netting, toe boards, that's not dealt with at this time. And most people's favorite passive-

Dave White:

Will be tied into that?

Craig:

Not at this point, you know, maybe in the future. But you know, hardhats, that would be a passive control that's not under this standard.

Dave White:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). So, when you talk about a tethering to a person, does it deal with any weight requirements of what you can tie to a person? Or is that ... Is it still kind of a ... What kind of rules of thumb do y'all recommend, or how does that flow? Because obviously you don't want to tether a 50 pound object to you and then drop it because you're probably going to follow it.

Craig:

Exactly. Yeah. So this one doesn't specifically say what weight you can attach to yourself. It talks about the weight ratings of the attachment points. For example, if you have a tool lanyard attached to an attachment point to yourself or an attachment point to the tool, that's addressed, but nothing specifically for the person. And you know, it's kind of tough to do that because there's different shock absorbency with these lanyards.

Dave White:

Well, that's one where y'all are kind of ahead of the pack, right?

Craig:

That's really important to us. You know, just stopping the tool from dropping, I mean that's like checking the box. That's the basic. Now to get above that is when the tool's dropped, how do you negate the force felt to the person?

Dave White:

How do you slow it down?

Craig:

That's where that shock absorbency comes into play, and that's really important to us.

Dave White:

Yeah.

Craig:

Because we've done tests where we've dropped a five pound weight and some of the lanyards where it's not shock absorbent, it could generate up to 200 pounds of force. Where, if you have that shock absorbency-

Dave White:

Well, I think y'all have some stuff on your website, don't you? That kind of shows a test of y'all stuff versus, you know, competitive stuff that's out there.

Craig:

Yep. Absolutely. We've got a couple of links to videos on our website and YouTube that shows that, and we've found about a 60 to 70% reduction in shock by having our tool lanyards that specifically are designed for that.

Dave White:

Well, I think y'all have some other ... Do you have any white papers or anything about this standard on your website?

Craig:

Yes. We have a bunch of different white papers on our website, www.ergodyne.com. You know, white papers specifically about tethering programs and systems because it's not as easy as just saying here. Here's a tool lanyard. Get after it. One tool could be tethered two to three different ways depending on how the user uses it, how they store it in their pouch-

Dave White:

Gotcha.

Craig:

And different jobs. So, it really does take quite a few visits from us. We usually do what's called a tool inventory. We have someone take their tools, we attach them, have somebody trial it out for a week or two, come back and fix anyone's, or make different attachment points so they have a nice solid system going forward.

Dave White:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's training that y'all are able to offer through your reps also, right?

Craig:

Correct. Yeah. And that's another thing, the [Ansi 00:18:38] 121 standard doesn't really talk about training. So you know, I was talking to an end user, and they're like, you know, I was hoping the standard would talk more about which specific lanyards to use, how to use them, training. And really you got to understand, this is a great first step in the process. This is not the final step. There will be additional pieces going on top. This is just a framework.

Dave White:

How do you see that rolling out?

Craig:

It's kinda tough because you know, right now, I mean, I don't think that the ANSI 121 is going to allow OSHA to go out and start finding everybody left and right. I think it gives them a little validity on the previous standards that were out there, the 1926 and 1910 and the general duty clause. So, if they really, really wanted to, I think they could. It'd be a little bit of a battle, but you look at fall harnesses though. They have a standard Z359 that just talks about testing and designing of the harnesses. That's what similar to ANSI 121.

So I think it really opens the door for more standards in the future that specifically do talk to how to use it, what's the largest tool weight that you can attach to yourself, and really dive into that more. But at the same time, we really shouldn't need that. You know, if you're a big company, an end user, and you have issues with tool lanyards and falling tools, this should be enough to kick you in the butt and say, hey, there's an issue. There are solutions. There are standards. Let's start implementing a program.

Dave White:

Yeah, and we always talk to our listeners about not being reactive. Don't wait for somebody to get hurt to decide to do something about it. Bad plan.

Craig:

Yeah. What we see the best catalyst is a near miss, where a tool falls, doesn't hit anybody, gets close, but that's the best way to see if the company actually gets them to go do it. Because if they wait, and they have a hit, you're behind the eight ball at that point.

Dave White:

Yeah. You're spending a lot more money than you would on some tool lanyards.

Well, Craig, thanks for being with me today. Appreciate you joining the podcast, and I'm going to zip us back up.

Craig:

Thanks, Dave.

Fred Radunzel:

Alright. We're back.

Dave White:

Yep.

Fred Radunzel:

Quite an interview that hasn't happened as of yet, but I don't know. There's just a lot of new things that are happening out there. So, we're going to try and start adding in, talking to some experts out there in the industry, you know, more and more as we go down this podcast road because you're going to get tired of listening to our behinds. I'm having a tough time. I'm censoring myself. I said behind. I don't think I ever say our tushies.

Dave White:

Tushies? Yeah.

Fred Radunzel:

My son-

Dave White:

My glutes?

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, my son has really got into ... I don't know. We were taking a walk the other day, and there was dogs walking in front of us. And he just kept talking about the dog's butt. Because we're walking behind them, he can see the dogs' butts. So, he's pointing out the dog's butt, and he's saying dog's butt over and over again. And his sister is laughing. She won't stop laughing. She's laughing even louder. Every time he says it, she laughs louder and louder. So, no matter ... We're getting closer to the actual dogs, and we don't want our kid to be screaming about the dog's butt.

Dave White:

Yeah.

Fred Radunzel:

And so we just keep going. He does not stop the entire time. We threaten. We're like, you're not going to be able to do this. No treats when we get home. It's going to be right to bed if you don't stop it. Nothing phases him because his sister will not shut up. She starts doing that, and then last night got out of the bathtub. He's laying there, and he starts flicking his thing. And he starts talking about my penis, my penis. He's talking about my penis grabbing onto this. Once again, his sister cannot stop laughing. Like he's telling the most hilarious joke ever. So, I'm not sure how I got there, but leads me in this week to our dumb ass of the week.

Speaker 1:

It's the dumb ass of the week.

Fred Radunzel:

So, talking a little bit about tool tethering and head ... So some of that's preventing head injuries, right?

Dave White:

Can be.

Fred Radunzel:

So, I'm thinking of all of us have had something that we hit our head on. We have something in our house that no matter how many times, whether it's you're going downstairs and there's a low overhang, it's like God damn it. Once a week, I bang my head into that.

Dave White:

Yep.

Fred Radunzel:

So, I'm thinking about-

Dave White:

My ex-brother-in-law, he's a big son of a bitch. So, every time he goes down in the basement, I have the basement from the era where nobody must have been over like 5'9", 5'10"-

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, so you hit six foot, you're ducking.

Dave White:

Yeah, all of a sudden, you know, there's certain places where, okay, I'm going off ... If I come off this last step, I'm going to bust my head if I don't ... And, I swear every time [crosstalk 00:23:26] over to the house, it's just like r- bang. Okay.

Fred Radunzel:

Yep. So, in your facilities, on your sites, you're going to have these areas that it's like, I fricking bang my head every single time I walk in there without a ... I don't have ... We don't wear bump caps because we don't need them for the rest of the work, but every single time I do this job, or I do this thing, this happens. And we're not doing anything to prevent it from happening in the future. So I think that's ... I don't know, I guess we're talking about proactive versus reactive.

Dave White:

Well it's-

Fred Radunzel:

Talked about that in other episodes.

Dave White:

[crosstalk 00:24:00] a lot of times, you can't engineer out everything.

Fred Radunzel:

Right.

Dave White:

I mean, so, like what you're saying is, you know, there's a lot of people that are starting to start using bump caps. And it makes a lot of sense because they're not in their traditional construction sense of, you know, knocking around, but it's, let's call it Joe the plumber guy that has to get under that kitchen drain, and stick his head in, and start moving around.

Fred Radunzel:

Or a mechanic.

Dave White:

Or a mechanic, or somebody that's in, maybe they're not going to drop anything on their head, but just how to say ... Kind of like a cat.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah.

Dave White:

You know that's the main reason a cat has it's long whiskers.

Fred Radunzel:

Oh, the whiskers? Yes, so they [crosstalk 00:24:45], they can feel it.

Dave White:

So, it can feel am I going to get stuck or whatever. Well, we're not blessed ... God didn't give us that stuff because it would be ... I'm probably sure there's a filter or something that you can put on one of these apps that can give them to you. I mean, we just don't naturally have them. And so we just not naturally blessed with that ability to go, I can't do this. You know, so the only way that we can figure it out is with the going back to fight or flight as you know, we have to have pain and then we go, oh I can't do that.

Fred Radunzel:

But to that point, when you're having your morning meetings or whatever, and you're like, I've now hit my head in this same spot three times. Maybe it's time to start looking at a sign that goes right there that's a low overhang, or you need to wear a bump caps in this circumstance. Or I cut my hand six times doing this same job, and I keep cutting my hand. What do we need to do here? Does something need to be engineered out? Do we ... Can we look at this a different way? Do we need to wear PPE?

Dave White:

Because there's-

Fred Radunzel:

You silly dumb ass.

Dave White:

But there's even we got some manufacturers out there that even make like rubber ros molding for like warehouse shelving and stuff like that, where you can-

Fred Radunzel:

Put a pad.

Dave White:

Yeah, but that's what I'm saying is you buy a roll of it, and you put that up there. And, you know, you're not going to bang your head into angle iron and then split your head open.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah. You're not playing football without a helmet on.

Dave White:

Yeah.

Fred Radunzel:

So, don't be a dumb ass. If something keeps happening to you, hey, let's take a look at how we can fix it. So, let's move into questions and answers for this week in the old email box.

So number one, do we have to lock out forklifts when we do repairs?

Dave White:

Do you have to?

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah.

Dave White:

Well a lot of people don't, so obviously you don't have to. So, some of this time, you know, when you get in there, obviously when you're working on it, a lot of it depends on what kind of work you're doing to it. I mean, because you have propane run units. You have battery run units. And then, there's different issues with both of them. So, when you sit there and talk about, you know, lockout, lockout is probably not necessary from the standpoint of certain ones where ... But other areas you might. So, depending on what you're doing. But anytime a forklift is taken out of service because you know, realistically the person utilizing the powered industrial trucks should kind of do a once around, and if you notice something it could be just something easy and an easy fix. But if you notice something wrong, you should take it out of service. So I think more of where the question probably should be is when you're locking something out, is making sure that somebody doesn't operate something that's known to be bad.

Fred Radunzel:

Okay.

Dave White:

So, you know, when you're talking about locking out a forklift, obviously you can disconnect the propane, or you can take the battery leads off, or whatever to where it probably ... It's incapacitated. But people aren't always going to do that, so there's even stuff like steering wheel covers out there that ... Like Master Lock makes something that just goes over to steering wheel, like this, out for repairs. Go get on another one, cuz. So, from a lockout situation, you know, I think that that kind of deals with that question.

Fred Radunzel:

Okay. Number two, can a fall protection, horizontal lifeline be used at foot level?

Dave White:

That one's kind of tricky because typically the ones that would ... There are ones out there that are designed to kind of, how to be lower profile on the top of buildings.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah.

Dave White:

And so, there are ones out there, but they're engineered for that. And where I think this one goes to is probably just a regular throw up, you know, rope, a temporary system versus a permanent. Like some of them can be rail or can be wire with shuttles that are engineered into the top of buildings. I don't think that this question's being asked in regards to that. So, I'm going to go with the caveat that it's not. So, then it gets into obviously how are you connecting to it? What's the deflection? How many people? How long is the span?

So, it becomes that mathematical equation that I'm going to always answer on the side of, no, you probably shouldn't do that because typically you want your anchor point to be kind of at your shoulder blades. And obviously, foot level's not your shoulder blades when it comes to that. So, I mean there's not a perfect answer for this one. So I'm going to opt in the, if it's an engineered system, you're probably fine. But if this is a temporary system that you're just throwing up, you're probably not going to get everything right to where you would be okay. Because again, there's so many factors of-

Dave White:

Where you would be okay, because again there's so many factors of did you get it tight enough, how many workers do you got on it, how many feet is the span?

Fred Radunzel:

So probably more if you do need a horizontal lifeline to work at foot level, make sure that you're purchasing one that's designed to do so.

Dave White:

Yeah.

Fred Radunzel:

Because I would say there probably are systems out there that are designed to do so.

Dave White:

Yeah, there're systems that are but they're typically not going to be temporary.

Fred Radunzel:

Okay.

Dave White:

You know, they're going to be an engineered, this is here from now, and for ever and ever amen.

Fred Radunzel:

Okay.

Dave White:

For the guy that's got a walker roof or whatever.

Fred Radunzel:

That led me to something that I think is a good thing that I didn't know until probably about a year ago. But that foot level, that that's kind of like the general term for below your shoulder blades. So sometimes someone would think of well, it's at my back level or my butt level. But that's still like ... You still need something that's designed for use at foot level is what most manufacturers are going to call it.

So if you're using retractable and a tie off point and it's just tied off in the middle of your back or your lower back or your legs. You still need something that's designed to be used at foot level. For the most part that's going to be what any manufacture seems to be calling it.

Dave White:

And usually the problem with that, if it's designed for that then the shock absorber or system is going to give more way so then your fall clarence changes. So it becomes a mathematical race to make sure that, I didn't quite hit. Got close, but I was still above it.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah. All right number three. When a glove has 360 degree breathability, what does that mean?

Dave White:

360 degree breathability? To me it's going to mean that it doesn't have a coating on it because most coatings are not very breathable. And ...

Fred Radunzel:

It probably could be a micro-porus, like a nitrile foam or something like that.

Dave White:

There are some that claim to be. There are some that are also ... I think Maxiflex now has one that's impregnated with something that causes it to feel more cool against the skin.

Fred Radunzel:

Okay.

Dave White:

The fiber that you have against your skin can feel more comfortable and thus, anything that feels more comfortable is going to feel like it's more breathable. Whether it is or isn't, some of that I don't know unless you did a ... There's tests that you can do to see how much ... How much air you can push through something.

Fred Radunzel:

Right.

Dave White:

But usually when we hear the breathability of a glove, it's usually in a coated product. And so you'll have your traditional two knuckles, then you'll have a ... From your knuckles to your fist and then when your to your fist, you're at a three quarter and then you can do a fully dip.

Fred Radunzel:

Yup.

Dave White:

So as you put more dip in the process, you're closing that up. So 360 degree breathability I'm going to go after the fact that it would be not a coated glove.

Fred Radunzel:

But mostly likely that manufacture or whoever is trying to claim that their glove is breathable through the coating.

Dave White:

Yup.

Fred Radunzel:

Is most likely what's trying to happen, whether or not that's the case ...

Dave White:

I'm just going to say, it's going to be more about what fiber the glove's made out of.

Fred Radunzel:

Okay.

Dave White:

Because if you put Dyneema on versus Kevlar, you just put it on and Kevlar's probably going to be hot but it's going to feel ... It's just going to feel awful just because it's an itchy fiber. But all of a sudden you go from a, let's say, a 13 gauge to an 18 gauge, the 18 gauge is obviously going to feel cooler than ...

Fred Radunzel:

Right.

Dave White:

The base level 13. And it should ... There should be space in the weave anyway.

Fred Radunzel:

All right. We'll call that an answer then.

Dave White:

Probably not the best answer.

Fred Radunzel:

No I think that explains what they're trying to say. When they claim it to be ... There's some caviance there.

Dave White:

Most of the time, it just depends if it's dry grip because if it's completely dry then you can use some of those micro porus but you still have people that want to try to ... They want it to be perfect and they're putting their hands in something that goes back to the whole, okay probably not going to hurt you today. But if you keep eating the lead paint chips over time you're going to get it stacked up to where you're just going to be ... You're going to be useless.

Fred Radunzel:

Yup. All right last thing that I really had for the day was, there's a rhetoric going around about mattress sperm. And the thing that made it stand out to me is cause a week and a half ago my wife and I went to go so Macklemore. We drove to Chicago and saw Macklemore. You know Macklemore?

All right I'll play you some Macklemore when we get out of here. How about Kesha? Kesha was with him.

Dave White:

I think I've heard of Kesha.

Fred Radunzel:

You got teenage kids too. Wild to me. [crosstalk 00:35:18]

Dave White:

They can probably tell you more about Led Zeppelin and all that stuff.

Fred Radunzel:

I know. Yeah. Your kids need to get beat up or something. Anyways. So we were driving, I don't remember what the little suburb of Chicago that we were in. It's out by Tinley Park.

Dave White:

Okay.

Fred Radunzel:

Anyways, we drove and on the right side of the road there was a mattress firm, it was sticking out. And we drove literally two blocks and there was a nother mattress firm. I was like, "Was there a Mattress Firm back there?" And I stopped the car and I turned around and I went and I drove by. And there was two Mattress Firms that were within three blocks of each other.

Dave White:

You want to hear how messed up ... WE're in Davenport, Iowa.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah.

Dave White:

There's a Mattress Firm on Elmore ...

Fred Radunzel:

Which I saw today driving to lunch.

Dave White:

And then there's a Mattress Firm on 53rd.

Fred Radunzel:

Is there?

Dave White:

Yeah.

Fred Radunzel:

Okay. So, here's the thing ...

Dave White:

Now that you say that, I'm literally like, well what the hell do we need two?

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah. Have you ever been in one?

Dave White:

Yeah.

Fred Radunzel:

Were you alone when you were in there?

Dave White:

I was with ...

Fred Radunzel:

No I mean were there other people shopping there at the time?

Dave White:

No.

Fred Radunzel:

No. It's only you. [crosstalk 00:36:33] There's usually three or four people working.

Dave White:

Me and Brandi and a lady and I still don't know if she was bullshiting or sure what. But she was up and had her shoes off and she was on a bed. And she goes, "I'm walking it now."

Fred Radunzel:

Okay. Whatever that means.

Dave White:

I'm like, "So, what the hell does that mean?" I've since asked a couple other people that have worked loosely in the mattress industry at some point and time and on some of these newer types of beds, the Tempurpedics and stuff. They actually do walk 'em down so when you get in ...

Fred Radunzel:

Working it in.

Dave White:

When you get into to ... 'Cause I guess a lot of people sample a brand new one and it's a little bit different after somebodies kind of got in there and broke a little bit.

Fred Radunzel:

Rummage around. Worked it out.

Dave White:

They've walked it in.

Fred Radunzel:

Okay. Plus is there anything that's more awkward than laying in a bed while a salesman watches you? Like you and your wife are in there trying out a mattress, like laying on it and this salesman's like, "Yeah. I like the way that one looks for you." Pretty awkward.

But anyway this whole thing is about there's 3,500 Mattress Firms in the United States. And I looked at like a map, the blog that I was reading brought up Austin, Texas. And there is so many Mattress Firms in Austin, Texas. That's ridiculous. I'll bet you there's 30 or 40.

And obviously there's a lot of people in Austin, but it's just wild. And then people started writing about how they'll be in a strip mall in Illinois ... There's strip malls that have two Mattress Firms in the same strip mall.

Or like a Mattress Firm and then like I experienced, a couple blocks away there's another mattress firm.

Dave White:

That's 70 Mattress Firms per state.

Fred Radunzel:

That's wild that there's that many. I'm sure it's skewed in Texas ...

Dave White:

Yeah, but how many Wal-Marts are there?

Fred Radunzel:

I don't know. Don't know the answer to that question.

Dave White:

Keep going I'm going to Google that. Because I think something's weird.

Fred Radunzel:

Anyways. So yeah there's all these things about a real chicken man from Breaking Bad operation going. It's like a drug laundering thing where they have all this. And it was sold, five years ago, for like 3.7 billion dollars to some foreign company that bought mattress firm.

If you needed big trucks with mattresses, I mean that's like the old adage of drug dealers hiding their drugs in mattresses. That's the whole ... So there's a big conspiracy out there. Mattress Firm is the big drug laundering ... Because you go in there, there's never anyone in there. So what you got?

Dave White:

It's not doing anything yet.

Fred Radunzel:

All right.

Dave White:

There were 4,177 Wal-Marts.

Fred Radunzel:

Okay. So, that's pretty close. There's almost as many Mattress Firms as there are Wal-Marts.

Dave White:

But Wal-Mart doesn't just sell beds.

Fred Radunzel:

That's right. And have like 15 beds out there. And they don't warehouse anything at mattress firm.

Dave White:

No they drop ship it all.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah. So, that happens.

Dave White:

And here you got ... Bluesk Capital Advisors proclaim that that's just simply to many stores.

Fred Radunzel:

So with mattress ... And they're probably shutting some of them down.

Dave White:

Yeah.

Fred Radunzel:

But my understanding, when I dug into a little bit, is that the margins on a mattress are insanely high. So to remain profitable, they have to sell about 30 mattresses a month.

Dave White:

Each store?

Fred Radunzel:

Each store has to sell about 30 a month and it's a profitable store. And so I don't know why it still makes sense to have two in the same strip mall. There's got to be business sense behind it, if they're not a big drug laundering operation.

Dave White:

Wow.

Fred Radunzel:

So if you want to build a Quad City Safety across the street, maybe that's the way we need to start going.

Dave White:

Okay.

Fred Radunzel:

Just start popping them up. There's my conspiracy for today, mattress firm. Look into it.

Dave White:

I'm going to pay that a little bit of attention.

Fred Radunzel:

So that's it for us today. Appreciate you guys listening. Once again, we're starting to wind down here season three.

Dave White:

Oh I did see an interesting statistic today.

Fred Radunzel:

All right.

Dave White:

I think it was Honeywell that was throwing it out there and it was talking about eye injuries.

Fred Radunzel:

Okay.

Dave White:

And they started noticing that the uptick in eye injuries is not static amongst the population as it works now. It's based more in millennials. So they've got a marketing push. So watch for the millennials without their safety glasses on. And if you're a millennial, wear your safety glasses.

Fred Radunzel:

Put some on?

Dave White:

Yup.

Fred Radunzel:

Fair enough.

Dave White:

So but no, just going in there, we're always going to see things oscillate back and forth, is there's a group of these kids that their parents never allowed them to mow the grass or anything like that. So they probably haven't been in situations to be ready for that.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah.

Dave White:

You were probably on the generation that really got it thrown at you. Me, we were still kind of, just don't look at the weld, if you're going to weld.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah.

Dave White:

Look where you're going to do and then try to close your eyes and not go blind.

Fred Radunzel:

Yup.

Dave White:

No I just thought that was interesting that they had statistics good enough to take it back. I'm sorry, I defeated how you were trying to exit.

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah, I was trying to exit the show. Let's do it a little clumsily. It's all right. So once again, appreciate everyone listening to us. We're winding down here season three. So, season four is upon us so if there's anyone you'd like for us to get on the podcast or a topic that you'd like to go. We're going to start planning season four here. I think we're going to be systems go with it.

So let us know if there's anything we can talk about or something to broch for the day. So that'd be fantastic if we heard from you. quadcitysafety.com, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter. We're on most social media platforms. So, we're even talking about an Instagram. I think there's talk of an Instagram starting up, so we'll see what happens there. But ...

Dave White:

Still trying to figure out Snapchat. [inaudible 00:42:45]

Fred Radunzel:

Yeah. So come on back next week, we should have another episode for you and we'll see you next week. Safety's got no quitting time. Thanks.

Intro Speaker:

Thanks for listening in to Dave and Bacon safety tails brought to you by Quad City Safety. Send us your questions on Facebook, Linkedin or Twitting at Quad City Safety, hashtag safetytails. Or e-mail them to Fred and 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.