<![CDATA[<P>The Military Engineer l No. 66261
Safety Assessments: Understanding Risk
By Craig Galecka, P.E., and Kimberly Messer, M.SAME
Reducing the actual risk of
injury from falls at work sites
requires decisions based on
accurate risk assessments and
prioritization of hazards.
Design & Construction
F
inding effective and cost-con-
scious methods of preventing fall
fatalities is a signi?cant challenge
for organizations and safety profession-
als. Organizations from large manufac-
turing complexes to federal agencies
have determined that the most effective
process for addressing fall protection
issues is the identify-evaluate-control
process.
The process is very logical: ?nd out
what the true issues are, evaluate so-
lutions and select and implement the
appropriate solution. Still, one of the
most common mistakes made when
confronting the fall protection issue
is simply to buy equipment. Working
through the identi?cation and evalua-
tion phases before selecting a control
method enables better judgments. Bas-
ing decisions on accurate evaluations,
including prioritization of hazards,
helps avoid spending valuable time and
money addressing problems that do lit-
tle to reduce the actual risk of injury.
Beyond Equipment
Although fall protection equipment
has many applications, it tends to be the
?rst choice, rather than the least pre-
ferred choice as indicated by the hierar-
chy of control (HOC). According to HOC,
fall restraint and fall arrest systems, which
are equipment-based solutions, should
be secondary options. These options are
not preferred because they are the least
effective and most defeatable by hu-
man action compared to other forms of
fall protection. Still, the prevalence of fall
protection equipment on the market and
perceived ease of use often leads organi-
zations to choose equipment as the solu-
tion for all hazards.
Simply purchasing equipment is
skipping the critical identi?cation and
evaluation steps of the optimum fall
protection process. Immediately select-
ing equipment negates the important
information that can be learned by
identifying all hazards and evaluating
the most effective methods for defeat-
NASAs John Glenn Research Center, outside
Cleveland, Ohio, underwent a thorough fall
hazard assessment to identify and prioritize
the safety risks throughout each of the centers
facilities.
Photo courtesy LJB Inc.</p>
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