Watch Out! Passive Fall Protection & Tool Tethers: Safety Tales Podcast Episode 19

Intro Speaker:

Dave & 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:

All right, we're back at it again. Welcome to Dave & Bacon's Safety Tales. You made it back so all those good old corny safety videos that you watched when you were in orientation, this isn't that. What's your favorite ones? They always have a forklift one, it's always a good forklift. Blood borne pathogens, usually sticks in there.

Dave:

Yeah, yeah. It's never like it should be, like blood borne pathogens, I would love if somebody literally threw up on the video instead of just kind of like the makeshift and if something happens, no. I want to see blood and guts man, I want to see it all.

Fred:

Yeah, there's never really the great ones, the ones you kind of doze off on while you're watching.

Dave:

They remind me of when I was in like sixth grade and the life health safety and-

Fred:

They came walking in with the television attached to the roller cart and they wheeled it in.

Dave:

Yeah, they're wheeling it in and this is Betty and Sue and Betty Sue to start liking each other. I'm not saying that you should just subject kids to just instant porn or anything like that but come on man, if you're going to get people's attention you better keep it interesting these days.

Fred:

For sure.

Dave:

Think about how much stuff that we consume. I'll sit there and turn off, start watching a show or something and get pissed off and not even make it through the first episode where that's much better than anything we watched from the 80s.

Fred:

Every week we kind of talk about job site safety and how to keep you safe out there, just trying to keep you awake while doing it.

Dave:

And again stuff needs to be top of mind. Sometimes we're going to ... You're going to go, "Man, haven't these assholes already talked about this?" We have. The whole goal is, over time is if we keep talking about this stuff, eventually maybe something will go off in your head and you go, "Wait a second, why does he have those matches over there."

Fred:

Yeah. I've been tossed into a couple walls headfirst; I might have some CTE so I'm I just forget that we already talked about this in three episode.

Dave:

Entromolopothy Cranial-

Fred:

CTE. Yeah. Traumatic. It's going to be traumatic.

Dave:

I was trying to sound out the E word the other day and I was never very good.

Fred:

Concussions, yup. Fred Radunzel, Dave White with Quad City Safety.

Dave:

Do you know that ... I was watching a special on that and I never really-

Fred:

On CTE?

Dave:

Yeah. See, a lot of people thought that it was ... The brain was actually like hitting something and it doesn't really hit anything, it's just that it fucking shake.

Fred:

I thought it hit your skull. I thought that's basically what a concussion was, is that the brain inside hits the wall of your skull and bruises your brain.

Dave:

Not really.

Fred:

No?

Dave:

No. They've changed that thought process.

Fred:

Give me the WebMD document on that if you will at the end of this episode let me take a look.

Dave:

Basically it's ... No, it's more like a shaken baby than anything.

Fred:

Okay.

Dave:

It doesn't actually hit.

Fred:

Fair enough. This episode, we're going to start off with an interview. Somebody that's a fall protection expert, we got two of them that we're milling around so whoever gets popped into this episode that's who we're talking to this time so we'll see how it goes, right?

Dave:

Yeah, okay.

Fred:

We've got a couple options; we're still trying to figure out who's going to slide into this episode. There's going to be an interview, it's about to get plugged in so we're going to go to that right now.

Dave:

What is up Tony? I kind of call Tony, Tony spaghetti but that's just kind of dicking with his last name, it's Ronalo. When I first got in this business I never could remember it so I'm like, well, he's kind of got Italian descent so I'll just call him spaghetti, what the hell.

Tony:

There aren't many Italians in Iowa or something?

Dave:

Not as much. Just a bunch of, [inaudible 00:04:17] that kind of stuff.

Tony:

You're not the first one though, butcher my name, or the last.

Dave:

Tony is with Great Lakes Sales and Marketing. In this podcast that we can try to explain what a manufacturer's rep is and where they kind of fit into the puzzle. Tony, what other lives do y'all represent?

Tony:

We represent FallTech, Fall Protection, Bradley Eyewash, Certified First Aid and then Blue Water, we're going to talk about Blue Water today.

Dave:

Yeah, right on.

Tony:

To name a few.

Dave:

Cool, cool. So, tell me a little bit about yourself. I know that you've got some kids and all kinds of good stuff going on. Tell us about that.

Tony:

Born and raised in Chicago, still live there. Haven't got straight too far away from Chicago. I have a 20-year-old daughter, 16-year-old son. Married for 25 years this year.

Dave:

Man, good for you.

Tony:

I got that going.

Dave:

I didn't make it seven.

Tony:

Well, I haven't gotten to 25 yet.

Dave:

There you go, got to get over that loop.

Tony:

Right, right. Got into safety industry in 1990.

Dave:

Wow, 1990. People don't realize, that was wild west sh**.

Tony:

Yeah. The industry really hadn't really found its feet yet. Everybody was still trying to figure out a lot of ... How to say? There wasn't a lot of standards and a lot of guidance. That was a different time, a different place. I started working for a distributor in the Chicago land area so I just came in inside sales. Back then it was kind of like if you did well in inside sales your goal was to get outside and get in the field and make some calls, any other five martini lunches and all of that, which isn't true.

Dave:

Five martinis with lunch or maybe two.

Tony:

The goal when you were on the inside is always, "Hey, those outside guys really have it made."

Dave:

Then you figure out that they really-

Tony:

Yeah, right. Then you realize they're working 12 hour days and on the weekends and everyone is screaming at them and all that.

Dave:

Every time you answer your phone you don't know who is going to yell at you the loudest.

Tony:

I started out there and progressed on the outside and then I got on the manufacturer side of the business and been at great lakes for 18 years now.

Dave:

Cool. You got a lot of knowledge to share with people. So obviously, being out in the industry for as long as you are, tell me some stories about what you've seen and what kind of motivates you to do what you do.

Tony:

I think we kind of sync up with this and when I saw you had started doing these podcasts, it really hit home because of doing fall protection presentations all the time. You have your canned speech and you can get wrapped up in that. Here's the ABC's of file protection, anchor point, body wear. It's the same thing and you do a drop test and what have you. Really, we try and focus on ... I think like I said, it syncs up with your ... What you're trying to do is, we want to get you home for dinner and that's important because people go away to work and you want them to come home and see their family when they're done with the work day. That didn't mean much when I was younger but as you get older it really-

Dave:

After you look at your children it starts to resonate.

Tony:

Right. And they're like, hey, what do you do for a living. You kind of use that as, "Hey, I get people home safe. It's not I'm selling a respirator-

Dave:

It sounds really cliché sometimes. I agree with you that people don't realize that some of the passion and some of the drive really is in just the human factor of you hear the stories where somebody retained their vision and it's like, I could never imagine waking up and not seeing my loved ones again. Protecting that person that's ignorant and you just go man, trust me dude, you really don't want to be breathing that cement dust in for the next 15 years because it's not going to bode well for you. Sometimes they don't get it.

Again, that's one of the things that we always try to talk about in here is ignorance is not a bad thing. Ignorance is just ignorant. So if we can at least make somebody aware and educate somebody on something, we really feel like that's kind of the point of what we try to do.

Tony:

Not really a story but just driving here today and driving on the interstate and we're going to talk a little bit about passive fall protection but I was driving by a big distribution center and there were folks up on the roof doing the work. They had the pennant flags going around the perimeter of the roof and I'm like, "What's going on there, is that a yard sale or something." That was their passive fall protection if you will or their warning line. You see that kind of stuff all the time and being involved with rooftop safety, I'm always looking up now. Before, you [inaudible 00:09:28] drive and you're looking at eye level but now I'm kind of trained. Somebody on that roof what are they doing and someone in that jail [inaudible 00:09:34], what are they doing and kind of aligns itself to what we're doing here today.

Dave:

Yeah, no doubt. So when you kind of look at some bad things that you've seen in the field that have been eye-openers, obviously when you talk about rooftop there's a whole plethora of things that people are doing wrong there, but what's some recent things where, you just kind of saw where it was, to the naked human eye, it doesn't look like anything but if a trained eye or somebody is paying attention, it's complete ignorance and it's going to end up killing somebody.

Tony:

You see it every, and I've seen this many times, you go to the Home Depot or Menards on a weekend, you see the folks driving in the aisles on the cherry picker and they're wearing a full body harness and they have a little SRL attached to the cage. Their leg straps and their full body harness is basically below their knees not synced up.

Dave:

Feet is on the ground.

Tony:

Yeah, exactly. Then sometimes the SRL is attached to the proper anchor point on the unit but sometimes it might be out in the hand rail that they lift up and down or they might be tied off somewhere differently. That is an example of the guy is wearing a harness to the naked eye like you're saying, "Hey he's okay." But obviously we know, you take a fall in that type of harness and what's going to happen with the leg straps.

Dave:

Maybe not [crosstalk 00:10:53] but his ability to reproduce his probably going to be in question.

Tony:

Right but stuff like that you see and it's almost the real life stuff that you see when you're not working that really is a magnified. Just because we're doing that every day at our job it seems we look at it more when we're not doing our job. And it's out there. If that makes sense.

Dave:

Well just like you kind of mentioned, a lot of these flagging systems there's a standard out there that says that you shall be this and there should be tinsel strength of your pennant flags and all this stuff. You look up there and it's like I know what the proper stuff is and what it looks like and it's like that's not the proper stuff. People are just trying to get that check the box stuff. I see one more of these freaking idiots bend on ... Every time you see a pennant line you see somebody on the outside of it and you're literally like ... Could you not at least move the ... Could you not at least move the pennant line further out so I feel better about it? I'm not going to get up there and measure out from the leading edge to make sure that you're far enough from it. That stuff is like why even bother. If you're not going to follow the plan then why have a plan? Just go old west style and shoot it up.

What we're here to hit today, from the standpoint of walking working surfaces and there's a bunch of stuff in it but there's a bunch of stuff that's between now and when you're great-grandchildren are going to be doing stuff you might have to worry about it but there is some things as it relates to 1910.26 in the rooftops that people how to say aren't paying attention to and don't know. While I kind of sit there and go a lot of times it's not a huge beta risk but most of life is a huge beta risk until it happens and then it's the ramifications that if we have a fall and we have a fall from most of the places that you're going to be on a roof is probably going to be a death. All of a sudden we have the 1.45 million dollar cost and then we have all the bullshit that little Tommy is running around kindergarten with no dad and the psychological events that happen.

Because when we get those cataclysmic events it's not always about ... We don't click we don't close the casket and the shit ends, it's traumatizing to people that are around it, it's traumatizing to kids that are dealing with it. Nobody wants to see dad in a wheelchair, dad with one eye and a patch. Maybe Halloween when he can be a pirate, it'd be good that one day but nobody wants to deal with that stuff. Tell me a little bit, I know that you'll have an audit process.

Tony:

Right yeah.

Dave:

Take me through how that-

Tony:

Sure.

Dave:

When you'll are low trying to evaluate it, what's some of the stuff that the listeners could maybe take away from here is at least a starting please.

Tony:

Right you know you and I we've done fall protection presentations before many times and we will hopefully in the future. We always talked about the hierarchy of fall protection. The first thing we always mentioned and sometimes it was just up high in the sky, we eliminate the hazard, "Hey let's eliminate the hazard that's a great idea. If we can do that fantastic." Or try and protect against that hazard with a passive system. If you can't do that then you're going to rely on a personal [inaudible 00:14:41] system. What we want to talk about his passive fall protection with regards to guardrail. What we provide at Bluewater is we were able to go up on the roof and do an evaluation of their entire roof. Do they have sky lights do they have hatches? How do they get on the roof? Who is on the roof? Is it just employees? Is it contractors? That brings in a whole other deal right there.

Dave:

Break that down a little bit. When you're talking about who's accessing.

Tony:

Right. Sometimes it will just be an employee that's familiar with the roof, they know exactly where the skylights are for the example, they know how to get up there but if you have an HVAC contract or going up there to do service what have you, they may not be as familiar, they may not know here the age is. There might be a second level in a roof for example. What we're trying to do with this audit is identify any areas where there are fall hazards.

Dave:

The reason I wanted you to dig into that is most people a lot of times when they look at is we know where all that shit is that. They take for granted that you probably ain't an HVAC guy, if you're a plant manager or whatever. At some point in time you're picking up the phone and calling the dude that's going to show up with the van with a ladder and start climbing on shit. I guess to just reiterate and hit that point is dude it ain't just about you, it's literally about them, it's about everybody running around.

Tony:

Right and you may have a great written fall protection plan within your company but all of a sudden you have a contractor whose has formed-

Dave:

Bubba shows up then first day but doesn't ... Probably hasn't read theirs either.

Tony:

May or may not be wearing a hard hat or whatever. You run that risk. What we try and do is we try and look at areas on the roof where people need to access. Then what we'll do is we'll do a drawing, we'll show them I would protect this with a 10 foot section of the guardrail and boom you don't have to worry. Anybody goes up there if they're working on that unit that's 6 feet away from the edge, they're protected and we don't need a spotter out there, we don't need them to tie off or find an anchor point.

Dave:

You're able to produce a drawing?

Tony:

Yeah typically what we do is we'll go up there, we'll measure the roof, we'll look at the areas, we'll ask some questions. Who's coming up here like we talked about before. Is it your people is it contractors? Whomever. Then we'll present some solutions and then based on that if they said, "Yeah it looks like what we want to do." We'll do a drawings so that when they go to install it they'll know these 10 foods section goes here for example and then the six foot section goes here for example. We work a lot with Google earth where we can even map it off, looking at Google Earth and we're even eventually talking about involving some drone technology to look at roof.

Dave:

No sh**.

Tony:

Because obviously when we go up there

Dave:

You're at risk.

Tony:

Yeah I'm at risk. I've never been-

Dave:

First man [crosstalk 00:17:46].

Tony:

We're looking at ways to do that more effectively and that's something that's been thrown around where we're not there yet but that would be pretty interesting.

Dave:

Yeah that's cool. I hadn't heard that.

Tony:

Then we talk about “how do you get to the roof?” Most of these roofs have hatches. We go up the hatch, we keep the hatch open obviously we're on the roof with that hatch open, that's an opening, that's a fall hazard. We get in the products. We call it a hatch defender.

Dave:

There's probably stuff also out there that people haven't seen?

Tony:

Yeah right. Skylights how often do you hear about a worker falling through a skylight?

Dave:

All the time.

Tony:

In the winter time maybe snow over the sky light obviously you can't see everything with the snow on the roof and someone falls through skylight. We look at those, we have sky light defenders that protect those so that if someone were to follow on top they're not going through. Just try and hit all those areas and it's a good dialogue up there.

Dave:

They're are able to self-install or-

Tony:

Yeah great question. With the guard rail system it's counter weighted bases with sections or rail, so that's how we create the system. Those bases are 100 pounds.

Dave:

It's a non-penetrating system?

Tony:

Correct. It's non-penetrating so you don't have to worry about damaging the roof.

Dave:

All of a sudden it's like who made the hole in the roof.

Tony:

That's another reason but I'll answer your question. You can self-install it really is ... The main issue is getting the bases up on the roof via crane or what have you. I encourage that but some folk just want the whole turnkey package. You mentioned not penetrating the roof and that's a lot of times where we get called in because folks could go with an engineered lifeline and they could penetrate the roof and may or may not-

Dave:

You're creating a potential ... You got to reroute something. A lot of these buildings ... If the building is big enough to have a hatch and HVAC units or whatever skylights on top, we're talking about a 2000 square foot pole building, we're talking some large geography and then trying to patch a roof that's ... Trust me I hate roofs, they're a pain in the arse.

Tony:

For sure. You have an engineered system that needs to be looked at once a year and you have to have someone that's trained on that. We're taking some training out of it, we're taking are they wearing there for protection correctly? Taking that out of it. The passive way eliminates a lot of issues that you may or may not be doing well.

Dave:

Tony I appreciate you having the conversation with me today. Guys if you're out there listening and your ears perked up and you need to get a hold of us, just reach out on any of our social media stuff, email us. Tony you might throw out your email address.

Tony:

Sure it's T-R-A-N-A-L-L-O at G-L-S-M-I.com.

Dave:

Cool, well thanks again, guys thanks for listening and hopefully we'll keep it interesting.

Tony:

Good to see you Dave thanks.

Fred:

Alright we're back. It was a super interesting interview with the person that I don't know who it was yet. It's going to be good I know it. Both options are good but the other one that we have we're going to use it in a later episode. We've started off talking a little bit about Chicken Little. Chicken little thought that the sky was falling because an acorn out of a tree hitting him in the head. If chicken little would have been wearing a hard hat maybe he wouldn't have been hit by the acorn, he wouldn't have thought that the sky was falling or realize that it was an acorn. He kind of sounds like he's an idiot, I don't know. Are you driving an acorn?

Dave:

Yeah. Sorry.

Fred:

Hieroglyphics. The sky is not falling but tools are falling.

Dave:

Well there's falling objects.

Fred:

Tape measures of falling and screws are falling.

Dave:

You're starting to see the word drops or dropped object. There's a bunch of different ways this goes but what's interesting about the reason that you bring up the story of Chicken Little is that's kind of the approach that we've taken. Is man shit is falling so why don't we wear PPE so that when it hits us in the head we're not damaged instead of just not going from really more of a little bit of a better process of looking at and they're ... Going, "Is there a way that you can keep from dropping that?"

Fred:

Because we also don't just have heads, we have shoulders. That something hits you in the shoulder or your bent over and something hits you in the back.

Dave:

Yeah, like you brought up the tape measures. I think it's almost every year but I think the last one was in New York the high rise structure, somebody dropped a tape measure and took somebody out. If I go and a tape measure is what hits me in the head and kills me, I'm going to heaven or hell or purgatory or wherever I'm sent I'm going to be pissed. That is really going to make me angry as hell but I expired because some dumb ass dropped a tool.

Fred:

I didn't go down in a hail of gunfire, I went down because somebody hit me with a one pound tape measure right in the cranium.

Dave:

From 27 stories up and probably had to have a closed casket because-

Fred:

Crushed me like a pumpkin.

Dave:

[crosstalk 00:23:30] my head up.

Fred:

Yeah I was going [inaudible 00:23:32] smashing pumpkin at the end. You attended here sometime in the last year a training with Ergodyne that they put on.

Dave:

What you're seeing is it's really ... When you talk about the dropped objects, the statistics are kind of out there that state that there's still some accidents. When we sit there and look at it, in 2014 there were 498 fatalities from being struck by an object or equipment. That was down from 509 in 2013. Of those 498 fatalities ... What's that?

Fred:

You can even start before that, it's got the page one here slipped of here but 42,400 struck by falling objects or equipment incidence basically.

Dave:

Yeah, correct.

Fred:

Top 10 non-fatal.

Dave:

Some people fight this thought but there's a methodology that says that you have this triangle and the top of the triangle is dead bodies. It's kind of near misses and then recordables and so if you work up that they're saying that the more of those things that you have is going to lead to a higher death factor, which makes logical sense. There's some safety nerds out there that are going games that which I get that too. I mean people are still dying, so we're looking at the fact that we're going from that 42,000 and we're getting them to a fatality. Of that 498 fatalities where somebody was struck by an object or equipment, 240 so half of those were caused by a falling object. Falling object there's no real definition of what the hell a falling object is. I'm sure you could be maybe in mining that a bolder fell off and squished somebody.

Obviously the goal is not to tether boulder or whatever. In there-

Fred:

There was always the urban ... I don't even know if it's an urban legend or if it's the truth but it was like if you were on top of the sears tower, something like that with a penny and you flipped the penny off the top of the sears tower and it struck somebody in the head, that would kill them instantly. I don't know if that's a real thing, that might be a little too light because the wind resistance I'm not sure if that would be-

Dave:

I don't know if-

Fred:

But that was always there in the legend. It doesn't have to be big I guess

Dave:

No, it doesn't have to be large at all. Really when you look at a hard hats, the hard hat is not really tested. I can't remember exactly how big the weight is but they don't drop that weight from 15 freaking stories. Well there's a couple of different things that they drop to see if it's ... The glancing blow and then they rate it for penetration. You're not talking a lot.

Fred:

There was that construction company we saw that they had a tube that they set directly over a hard hat and they dropped it through the tube and a small bolt hit the hard heart. It drove a hole right through the hard hat.

Dave:

Gravity is a bi***. Gravity is not a good thing. Again 240 people of those and ... You're sitting there going half of the people that are struck by an object or equipment, it's an object from a different level. There's fatalities every year. The thing about it is, is we talked about it. We try to take the approach here that safety is more of a human factor, as Jesus Christ, we're people, we should try to do something to go home at the end of the day but there's still a cost. If you stack a body up or you have an injury. An injury is $42,000, that's just cost. That's empirical data. Everyone is going to be a little different because somebody is going to listen to this podcast and go, "Man if I scratch my hand." That's not 42,000 that's bullshit. We're talking in average here. If you look at the cost for a fatality, you're talking about 1.5 million dollars.

Let's say it's a smaller construction company. I'm sure that's about enough to shut the doors. The costs that exist there are crazy. You look at the fact that there's still 240 fatalities that cost of dropped objects is around 348 million dollars. That's like winning the lottery only in a bad situation.

Fred:

Yeah that's from dropping stuff. Knocking stuff over. It's like little accidents.

Dave:

There's a lot of people out there really pushing this thought process and one of the leaders is Ergodyne. Ergodyne is just a brand that we represent. You look at most of the fall protection companies, so whether it's DBI Miller, just about everybody has Sellstrom, RTC, Hammerhead. There's a bunch of ... That have systems in place which is things that attach to the tools, lanyards to attach them to somebody. Pouches to put set tools in. From a standpoint of the class that I went through is looking at and trying to learn how to evaluate what the tool is and then how to attach to the tool so that you can obviously ... It's not a perfect science because let's say a hammer. A hammer is something that's very easy to drop, but if you don't get your attachment point right on the hammer, a hammer becomes really useless if it's tied to your body wrong and you're trying to work with it.

A lot of it you got to pay attention to what the user is trying to accomplish or perform with the tool and get to a means there.

Fred:

Sometimes it will ricochet, something drops it hits something else it goes into a different direction.

Dave:

Here you go is, let's say “what's the weight of the tool?” When you get something that's let's say above five pounds and you drop it over a couple of feet-

Fred:

I'm sorry to interrupt you but the story that I was reading in doing a little bit of research for this was, it was 10 feet, a 1 pound tape measure. He dropped it from 10 feet, it ricochet off some metal and hit him in the head and killed him. From 10 feet. A one pound tape measure. That's not much. I feel like if I was 10 feet away and I threw a tape measure at you I would not be able to kill you but evidently you that's probably the case. If it's just dropping a one tape measure it hits you in the head.

Dave:

You don't know where it struck him you don't know ... There's a lot of things. But the whole thing is somebody dropped it and it didn't have to happen.

Fred:

To my point, that's not far. If I had somebody working 10 feet above me, I can almost jump and grab that shoe. I wouldn't think that an objects that they dropped that hit me in the head would require me to wear even or a fall protect ... They're on a ladder 10 feet above me and I'm underneath holding the ladder and they're working with a bunch of tools. You wouldn't think, "God if he drops his screwdriver that's in his pocket it hits me in the head-

Dave:

You don't have that looking at a grizzly bear thought process like, why am I ... A lot of times and unfortunately we-

Fred:

[inaudible 00:31:59] can get you too.

Dave:

Yeah but we allow ourselves to try to decide when we're going to be safe by when we get scared. To your point is you look at that thing you like, shit. Your brain doesn't even comprehend.

Fred:

Yeah something could you drop and if it's did drop it could actually hurt me.

Dave:

Human condition doesn't work that way. The only reason that we know not to pick up hot shit is because when we were a kid we walked up and we picked up hot shit it burnt us and our brain went.

Fred:

That sucked.

Dave:

That's how that works. I'm sure it's people with PTSD after you go fight a war and they hear that sound they're brain associates shit. We just don't have that chemistry out there. We haven't had any trauma experience that gives us, how to say we don't understand what the consequence of where we're at and what we're doing is.

Fred:

Alright I derailed on what we were talking about in regards to the training.

Dave:

One of the things to remember is, there is presently not anything that directly says, "Your supposed to tether your tools." It's loosely identified in a couple of standards. It's loosely identified in the construction standard in 1926 501 section C where there is in quote, you need to provide protection from falling objects. In steel erection where you're seeing a lot of people climbing and stuff is 1926 759 section 8, secure loose items aloft. Then comes in the granddaddy of them all, which is the general duty clause that basically any person under [inaudible 00:33:43] can cite anybody for anything based on the fact that if they look at it and they're pretty sure that you should have had common knowledge or knowledge that, that could have caused something. I'm pretty sure that they would have a pretty good case against you that let's say we're working on a multi-story building and we don't have any flooring or decking in there and somebody dropped something or to your case is running a hammer drill and someone is holding a ladder under him and they let go of the hammer drill and it takes them out.

I'm pretty sure that they would have a strong case and you might be able to argue that fine down a little bit but still you've got a dead body and an insurance claim and your name in the paper. Sometimes they say there's no good thing as bad press.

Fred:

Bad press.

Dave:

I believe-

Fred:

It's bad press.

Dave:

We're in a day and age where that's right up there with doing cocaine with your three year old or something like that. It's just really frowned upon by society.

Fred:

Nobody likes that, nobody is going to be a fan.

Dave:

Nobody signs of and goes, "You know I guess I could see some ... No you don't. Never mind them

Fred:

Although I'm pretty sure OJ still just had a major big special that is on TV.

Dave:

That is exactly where I was getting ready to go to.

Fred:

Or Casey Peterson whatever drowns her babies and she's the hot murder or something, and she's on the cover of magazines or whatever. Allegedly.

Dave:

Sick freaking world we live in.

Fred:

Yeah. You got anything else on that topic?

Dave:

But no, basically the whole thing is just, again, paying attention to ... Everybody is got to decide whether there's something in ... A potential for drops. The argument that I'll give people is, even if you're going to sit there and go, "That's not primarily what I'm worried about is everybody is walking around with tools and tools are usually pretty expansible things, so think about how many people are ... I'm pretty sure that, if Sears, what was their tool set?

Fred:

Craftsman.

Dave:

Craftsman. Think about all the craftsman riches, those were interested. Those were supposed to be good for life. There should be freaking piles of those things everywhere, if they were good for life. Unfortunately, they're not because people lose them or break them and whatever it is, take it home with them. I guess, one of the arguments, I give people is if you had a tool bag and you tethered everything to the tool bag, you'd make sure, when somebody came back that they had all the ... You wouldn't leave tools. The 'but' to tether, I think, that a $15 tool and the fact that you didn't lose it, maybe you can look at it, I guess-

Fred:

From that direction.

Dave:

Yeah. Well, I think you have to look at it from multiple standpoints. Some of it is, well, let's say, I'm old boy maintenance and I got to get in there and work on this machine and I forgot to take my [inaudible 00:36:48] With me and we turned it on and we completely trashed that piece of equipment because we forgot to take that out there. Well, there you go. I mean, because the beginning of this whole dropped objects is it's ... There's another form of thought, which is FME foreign material exclusion. Foreign material exclusion is like, if you're in new plants and stuff like that and they want to make sure that you don't leave anything in there, so if you go into a situation ... You go into somewhere, everything that you take in has got to be tied onto you somehow so you at least, if you're going to drop it, you're going to at least, be dragging it out behind you, so that there's no way that anything will leave.

There's a lot of different mentalities or a lot of processes that you can get to that, I think, complement that fact that we need to attention to the fact that now we're working at heights; we have fall protection for ourselves, but now we have identified that we don't have that death from the guy falling from the top of the structure and hitting and dying, we now have the fact that the guy is on top of the structure and is dropping stuff, so we got enough data that we've identified that there's a body count on that. And now we just need to go after that. Again, understanding what somebody is doing, getting and testing the tethering because, again, some people will fight back because, if I describe your tool and tether it, yeah, it will be in situation where you can drop it and it won't hit the ground, but it may hinder somebody doing their job. here's lot of-

Fred:

Throw you off balance. That can be another thing.

Dave:

Well, that's one of the things that, I think, I started going to and I lost is, you got to watch the amount of weight and shock factor. Because, the human beings only need about 20 pounds of pressure doesn't lose balance. If you have a sledge hammer and you drop it four or five feet, you're going to produce a ton of force. If you're at heights that could be enough to-

Fred:

Cause you to fall.

Dave:

Cause you to lose your balance.

Fred:

In that case, maybe you'd be netting or something like that.

Dave:

Well, they make it now to where just like you have cross arm straps and they have tool tethers that you're not tethering to yourself. You just need to make sure that when tools get heavy enough that you tether them to a structure or something that's not you or is not going to pull you off. Again, that would be a real shitty. Well, I dropped my drill and it pulled it off and I've been hanging here. The safety director is going to go-

Fred:

Call the fire department.

Dave:

Okay, that's good. I mean, we rescued you and everything, but that's going to be … I'm pretty sure that you're going to have a pink hard-on or something that's somehow is going to decorate you.

Fred:

Right. I do think this is a ... That's a good topic because that's one that I don't hear too often. There's few construction companies that I work with that-

Dave:

Well, it's still new.

Fred:

[crosstalk 00:39:59] Infancy.

Dave:

Yeah. I mean, it's three-ish years into the process, which in safety years, is not very long.

Fred:

Right, because you still had a pitch basket.

Dave:

Yeah. it's literally still pitch basked stuff where we have one-page rules that is on the side of the gym that …

Fred:

We're figuring it out.

Dave:

If you get the thing into the pitch buck; if you get two, then they had a cut ... They did originally cut the bottom of it out; somebody had to stand up the top and pull the basketball out of the pitch basket and throw it off.

Fred:

That all leads me into our dumbass of the week this week. I got someone I'm going to refer to him, as Bon Jovi. I've got a real Bon Jovi 1980s head of hair on him.

Dave:

Oh man.

Fred:

You got the hair spray for days. First off, they're probably a flammable, when we were talking about art flash in one of the last episode; they're probably a disaster there, if they catch some sparks. But their thing is, they don't want to wear their hard hat. How do you put a hard hat on that head of lettuce? I can relate to this a little bit. Sometimes I'll go into a call, which is my little flow that I got going on, put on a hard hat that crumbs me down. I look like, there's an episode of Sign Field, where Jerry gets a bad haircut. He's got his normal barber that he goes to and that guy is out, and so he goes to this other guy for day and he's got the flat, matted down ... I don't know, you never seen that. Or Cramer, in the same episode, I think, he's got a bad shower, so the water pressure is no good and so he doesn't have his big poof of flow. Anyways, Bon Jovi-

Dave:

I do miss Cramer’s.

Fred:

Yeah. He had some tough times.

Dave:

No. I mean, he lost his shit out in California or whatever in a couple of years ago.

Fred:

But a good actor, for sure.

Dave:

He's just, how to say it-

Fred:

He was the best. Anyways, so Bon Jovi here, out of the job site, gets to work in the morning, and he doesn't put on his hard hat unless he's told to put on his hard hat, so he could be in some real dicey situations here, so luckily for the particular Bon Jovi, that I'm talking about, I don't believe he's actually had a head injury for something hitting him, but he's at risk every single day that he doesn't put that thing, so that becomes a, "You're not too cool. You don't like the way I looking at dorky safety vest or I don't like to wear a hard hat because I think it makes me look goofy, or I don't want to wear the safety glasses that my employer provides because I want to wear my cool man white Oakleys that actually aren't Z87 rated or something like that, and so safe is cool, right?

Dave:

Well, I mean, a dead body are-

Fred:

You get about one of these schools falling from above all because I don't think your hair spray is going to protect you. Farrah Fawcett.

Dave:

Well, even if you have ...Even if they got in there and they'd probably go in with a little mail and bowler or whatever. By the time you got it all done, you can have that whole collapse front quarter of your head. I don't think chicks are going to dig your … What's left of your hair.

Fred:

If you put on mascara, it's not going to cover that up.

Dave:

Yeah, so when you put lipstick on a pig but you can't put cranium back into ... I don't even know.

Fred:

Right. You can't use putty to fill in the gap.

Dave:

Yeah, you can't bundle your head up.

Fred:

Bon Jovi is our dumbass of the week this week. Apologies to the actually Bon Jovi. When we get the transcript of this episode, it's going to have us calling Bon Jovi a dumbass 15 times.

Dave:

All right, he is.

Fred:

I like the guy. Let's move on. You're not a Bon Jovi fan? How dare you.

Dave:

I mean, there was probably a chance in the eighth grade but I was flowing with living on prayers or something like that, but-

Fred:

Yeah. I don't care. Still to this day, you're in a bar, it's 1:30 am and living on a prayer comes on? The whole goddamn place is going nuts.

Dave:

Yeah, I get it.

Fred:

All right, moving on to the safety Q&A this week, question number one, we do all our repairs on first shift, do we have to have second and third shift employees lock out the machine on their shifts even if they aren't working on the said machine?

Dave:

That's a really complicated one, but yes, if, how do you say it, there has to be a custody of, if something's locked out at the end of the shift, there needs to be ... I think, we have a blog article out on it. Is you have to manage the fact that that machine is still locked out into the next shift so that people are aware, if that makes any sense.

Fred:

Sure.

Dave:

There'll be system transfer locks or, how do I say it, it really gets into ... If you got multiple shifts and you're locking stuff out like that, have a good lock out policy is not just, "Hey man, we got this damn toolbox with a bunch of red shit in it and we've got some locks." Is if it's a complicated machine and you got multiple people in multiple shifts, creating a process that is safe? But identifiers going between different shifts, there's extra steps that you do need to take.

Fred:

How about question number two, can you talk a little about the different coatings on different cut-resistant gloves and their best uses? Polari thing, PVC, night trial latex.

Dave:

They're all a little bit different. It really depends on what you're trying to do. For instance, let's say that we need really the best textile ability like we're sorting screws or sorting paper clicks or something crazy like that, we need-

Fred:

Something a little sticky.

Dave:

Well, we just need to be almost feel the part. Well, a lot of PU coatings are so thin that it almost like ... It feels like a second skin. Yeah. There's situations where that works. But if it's a higher abrasion, the PU is going to wear out before night trial. Night trial is a little bit more chemical resistant than other ones, plus say that you want your handling glass and there's something that's referred to as bounce as you're handling glass, you might want a natural latex. Let's say that you want night trial but you need to have a little grip, well, then they've comes up with these hybrids so they'll have a foam night trial, so they'll blow air through it so [crosstalk 00:47:03]. Well, kind of has a section caps per se or something ... It gives it friction so you can get a better grip. Let's say you're in a really high ass heat and you want Silicon. Silicon is in a lot of stuff in your kitchen that you're always amazed at how high you can get. Well, get that shit wet and sleek as hell.

Fred:

Right.

Dave:

A lot of ... There's all kinds of different coatings out there but you really need to sit down and figure out what I'm handling and what I'm really trying to achieve before you try to pick out a coating because, let's say that we ... Let's go back to the whole Silicon thing is ... I recently, I did do a good job of asking the customer what they needed help with. I thought that they were doing some work around heat and there was this Silicon coated glove that I thought would work. Well, it turns out, no, there's a little bit of cutting fluid in it. Once that got on there, there was this sleek of shit, so I didn't do a good job. I gave them a glove that matched what I thought it was, but I didn't go through the checklist for making sure that I knew that because I had I known that, I'm dumbass for handing them that or suggesting that they use it.

Fred:

I would say, if anybody needs actual help, there's some pretty good charts that are out there that explain the difference between, so if you want to reach out Fred@quadcitysafety or Dave@quadcitysafety with that question, we can get those charts in your hand so we can really help you narrow down the glove-

Dave:

Well, it takes into ... I think you were just out on an appointment today where they need to be able to handle but they need chemical resistance. So, that's one where there's two different things going on. There's one depth that keeps the chemicals out and then there's the second depth that gives you the ability to hold on to something. That's where I'm saying is sometimes the answer is a hybrid.

Fred:

Cool. All right, third question, finally, can we use our old MSDS sheet still, or do we need to update them all?

Dave:

You should update everything. I mean, they're starting to really get into paying attention to this whole ... This whole GHS thing is not going to go away. And spend the money and change your MSDS box to your SDS box, go to the new file layouts because, if you're just doing it to check the box, fuck it, just leave it how you got it and then when somebody ... When you're trying to figure out what's in something, you all can read the ... Or the MSDS because MSDS is more laid out as well as the new form for an SDS is laid out, so once you learn how to read them, you know what's important to you and where to go. When you go to the PPE or the pictograms on there, you can really quickly look at there and go, "This shit will explode," or, "I shouldn't put this in my mouth," or whatever that is. What was the question?

Fred:

We get rid of [crosstalk 00:50:19]-

Dave:

Yes, get rid of all the old stuff. They've got the new SDS sheets, get them housed right. Little things like making sure that your mark in secondary containment, so if you're pouring something out of the big drum into the little bucket pale spray bottle, whatever, it's best to start labeling that stuff and, yes, it's a pain in the ass sometimes, but realistically, don't get excited for something stupid like that, plus that one chance that somebody picks up ... I don't know, like a spray bottle with [inaudible 00:50:58] It was like, "I'm going to spray to my face with this."

Fred:

Yeah, I'm going to put my Bon Jovi hair in this [inaudible 00:51:04] It looks pretty good.

Dave:

Yeah.

Fred:

Fair enough. I got a segment I'm calling the falling from grace. It's always fun to talk about those celebrities that they had it all and then all of a sudden ... It's pretty much, they had it all and they went broke. What happened?

Dave:

If you think about the amount of money that's been pissed away by whether it's actors, athletes or whoever.

Fred:

Musicians.

Dave:

It's literally like, I think if I ever fell into that much money, the first guy I would hire would be somebody like, "Man, here's 10 million dollars. Just make sure I don't blow that. “Maybe everything else but-

Fred:

I got $100 million to play with. This $10 million goes away.

Dave:

You keep it locked down; you don't let me have it-

Fred:

That guy is not on my list but that's what happened to Allen Iverson, the basketball player, is that there's a Reebok payment in his shoe contract, when they did the whole thing that he wouldn't have access to it until he was 50 years old. He was getting $10 million or $15 million at 50 years old; he didn't have any access to it before that. Sure enough, in his early 40s, all his money is gone, and so now he's just waiting for that Reebok payment to happen. That could be off on maybe its 45 years old or whatever but-

Dave:

It don't matter.

Fred:

It was one that thy at least put some protection.

Dave:

If I remember, he's got a whole wheelbarrow full of kids so I'm sure that he needs money.

Fred:

Yep. He's got some coming 20 years from now so he's got to make some money on his name, I'm sure, but other basketball player I had on the list was your Antoine Walker from Kentucky.

Dave:

[inaudible 00:52:40].

Fred:

Yeah. $110 million he made in his NBA career, and out here the 30 for 30, I think, they did on broke athletes, he was the one that would be hanging out with Michael Jordan and some of those buys that trying to keep up with them. Someone told a story about they were in Vegas gambling and he had stacks and chips sitting in front of him and Jordan just came over and just ripped $50,000 of off his table and went and just took it to just play with it. we all got tons of money, I'm just snatching a 20 from you. But he had some investments in I think 140 properties that he bought in Las Vegas and then the big housing crash happened-

Dave:

That was good.

Fred:

He lost all his money basically. He was the first on my list. Have you ever heard of Dave Foley? This is one that you'll be able to relate to a little bit. He was on News Radio. Do you remember that show?

Dave:

Yeah.

Fred:

He started News Radio; he's one of the kids in the hall. When he was on News Radio, he was making a million dollars an episode or a million dollars-

Dave:

No way.

Fred:

That dude was ... Those people in France; they made $10 million an episode.

Dave:

No.

Fred:

Yes.

Dave:

An episode?

Fred:

I'm pretty sure.

Dave:

No.

Fred:

Maybe I'm way off. Either way, there's like 20 episodes in a multimillion an episode.

Dave:

News Radio, that's a podcast guy.

Fred:

Joe Rogan?

Dave:

Joe Rogan.

Fred:

He was a minor player on it.

Dave:

No, I know but I'm just saying that there was a lot of talent in that.

Fred:

Phil Hartman, Andy [inaudible 00:54:10] was on it.

Dave:

That I don't recognize his name. He couldn't been a million dollars-

Fred:

He was the star of the show. It was his show at the time, kids [inaudible 00:54:19].

Dave:

I'll probably see him and know who the hell he was.

Fred:

Maybe Canadian guy.

Dave:

There you go.

Fred:

Real Canadian.

Dave:

Yeah everybody loves Canadian.

Fred:

Yeah. When he was on the show, he had $17,000 a month or something like that was his child support payments. Because he was making so much money per year, so then the show ended and he didn't have that money anymore, and in Canada, they said that the kids were accustomed to that lifestyle so he had to continue to making the exact same child support payments, and so he ended up leaving Canada; he can't go back to Canada because he owes $500,000, in back child support payments.

Dave:

I might not blame him for that.

Fred:

Right. He's got-

Dave:

I'm just saying take care of your kids, but they are, at some point in time ... I mean, what the hell do you need $17,000 a month to ... I'm not even sure what the hell lifestyle that is.

Fred:

Nick Cage, here's another big on my list. Made, obviously hundreds of millions of dollars in his careers, but over the years, he purchased a haunted murder mansion, he bought a private island and a collection of shrunken heads, and so the one thing that got me- the crowning achievement of all of this was, he spent $275,000 on a 67 million year old tyrannosaurus Rex skull.

Dave:

He's into the cult weirdo-

Fred:

For sure. Then, come to find out, it was stolen so he had to return it.

Dave:

Give it back.

Fred:

Not only did he lose the money but he had to give the [inaudible 00:55:53]-

Dave:

I wonder if the court gives you visitation rights.

Fred:

I think a quarter a million dollars for the skull, I should be able to see it. Then, Hammer, I mean, he's got to be ... He's got to be the biggest talent-

Dave:

I think I saw something ... Isn't he a minister out in California or something though?

Fred:

He does TV ... Tele-evangelist, so he bought a million dollar house, and then spent $30 million upgrading it over the years like I'm going to put in a baseball field here and I'm going to put in this and that. He had a staff of 200 that costs $500,000 a month; 17 car garage; 33 seat movie theater and he owned 19 race horses one of which was called Dance Floor; and finished third in the Kentucky Derby, and you know those horses aren't cheap?

Dave:

No.

Fred:

There's all a million dollars apiece.

Dave:

A show horse in the Derby is ... I could buy every car I ever wanted for what a Derby horse cost.

Fred:

Right. And the other one-

Dave:

What did you say? 17 car garage?

Fred:

Right.

Dave:

It might be two horses.

Fred:

Yeah. Thomas Jefferson, all TJ, he went broke, so he had a major wine-

Dave:

I think he went broke a couple of times. He was-

Fred:

He was a wino.

Dave:

Yeah, but he was really a weird, I believe it was him. Never mind, go ahead.

Fred:

Anyways, he bought wine, so he would have to get it from Europe because they didn't have the right wine in the United States, and then he would have it shipped in the glass bottles because he was so much of a hipster in it. Usually, they sent it in barrels and he would get it in glass bottles because he was paranoid that crooked merchants would water it down on the way to get to him, so that's how freaked out he was. He would spend about a million dollars a year in wine and went broke.

Dave:

That had to be present day money.

Fred:

From his wine. The article I read said a million dollars a year. I don't know, if that's-

Dave:

That has to be adjusted. There's no fucking way-

Fred:

No way, Thomas Jefferson was just rolling cash like that.

Dave:

Well, I mean, I'm not sure what the multiplier for 17 something [inaudible 00:58:09] I mean, that would have to be a billion or something.

Fred:

Yeah. That's enough. I think it's time for us to call it day. There's a couple of ball games coming on here pretty soon. If I'm going to start getting the shakes; if I don't get in front of a television here pretty quick. If you could, please review us on iTunes, reach out on email or hit us up on any of our social media. If you can do that we got a little surprise for you that will get sent coming your way.

Dave:

Somebody get surprised.

Fred:

Some candy bacon; we've got some stuff coming your way.

Dave:

Amazing sh**.

Fred:

We need you to keep coming back. Safety has got to be something that we're talking about everyday not just a now and then. Thank you guys, really, for listening to us. Stop whining to your coworkers about how you wish there was more of us and less of them. We're here; we're on quadcitysafety.com. You can read our blog, we'll be back next week. You guys are our safety sidekicks, so safety has got no quitting time, we'll see you later.

Outro 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 @quadcitysafety #Safetytales, or email them to Fred@quadcitysafety.com. Here's the guy keeping this mess of a show in line. If you like the show, please rate and review us on iTunes. It's a kickass way to show that you care about safety.