Safety Stand-down: Fall Prevention

By Cayden Wemple. 

Two safety experts lend their insight into fall prevention on a new episode of Roofing Road Trips.  

The first week of May is National Safety Stand-Down to Prevent Falls in Construction and one of the biggest focuses is on fall prevention. Two three-decade construction safety veterans, Cheryl Ambrose and Rich Trewyn of National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA), made an appearance on a recent episode of Roofing Road Trips to give their insight on fall prevention.  

NRCA is focused on reducing the number of deaths that happen due to falling off a roof. “[Falls] have been the number one thing that has killed or injured people in construction for my entire career. It has been as low as a third, 33%, but there have been some years where it's actually inched up a little further than that. Some years it's been even closer to 35% or even 40%, which is really hard to wrap your head around.”  

Cheryl continued, “Every safety professional across and every contractor across the construction industry pretty much knows that falls is a big issue. If they don't, well, we'll help them get there because it is a big issue.” 

One reason these accidents keep happening is because of a lack of training. “I think one of the numbers that is just staggering to me that stuck out in my mind, is that among those who did not have the training, about 74% of those didn't use fall protection on the job,” Rich explained. “It goes without saying, they weren't trained, they weren't going to use the protection. It's unfortunate that many companies have that same thought or that thought process that they don't have a training program.”  

Rich continued, “That's what we want to change. We have a full-day course, we have a two-day course. We also have courses that are done specifically for a topic, specific to a part of the fall protection program. It's so important.” 

Listen to the full podcast to learn more about the steps that NRCA is taking to increase fall prevention awareness.