Rope and Fall Protection

Rope and Fall Protection

Safety has come a long way since the advent of early fall protection. In its earliest form, people used hemp ropes and knots to secure themselves (and other objects) against the forces of gravity.

Early fall protection became more and more common on top of ship decks throughout stormy seas. It usually consisted of ropes and a body belt restraint. Other forms of fall protection could be found in ships, line-utility applications, and construction.

Between 1880 and 1930, nearly 24 million immigrants arrived in the United States and began working in modern cities like New York and Chicago. The cost of land prompted architects and engineers to build up, bringing a new kind of building to life: the skyscraper. During this time, steel was the basis for the sky scraper’s architectural design, and as such, it required hundreds of men to work at height without any fall arrester.

Fall arrester equipment was limited, especially in the construction industry. Workers had to walk across one-foot-wide steel beams hundreds of feet in the air. This led to countless injuries and deaths, approximately accounting for 40 percent of the workforce—or two out of every five workers. With such a staggering loss of life, engineers began looking for better solutions to keep workers safer at height.

At the end of the 20th century, technological advances helped to shape the concept of horizontal overhead fall protection. Overtime, fall protection solutions began to evolve, and hemp rope was eventually replaced with wire rope. Body belts were typically worn loosely around the waist, making them unreliable and dangerous

Manufacturers began developing new and innovative fall arrester products to improve worker safety. Body belts remained in use for several decades, until workers began to understand the dangers associated with them. Workers had to fall a certain way to circumvent potential hazards. The body belt would arrest a fall if the worker fell ‘correctly’. However, if he fell ‘incorrectly’, the belt could be pulled up under his arms, or he could slip from the belt entirely. In the event of a fall, dangerous forces were directed to the worker’s spine and midsection when wearing a body belt.