There certainly are many different types of jobs that are suitable for many different types of personalities. There are people who enjoy being indoors and having a stable income, and they work as secretaries, accountants, managers or lawyers. There are people who are very passionate about creativity and art and they enjoy working on their own hours, being their own bosses and deciding what to do and what not to do, and they work as painters, musicians, writers and artists.

But, how about people whom, no matter what they do, love the adrenaline and the wind blowing on their faces and, specially, are not afraid of the heights? Well, they work as window cleaners, zip line workers, bridge construction workers or wind turbine repairmen. It is exciting, no doubt, but greater precautions need to be taken while working at heights compared to any regular job. If there is a risk that you may fall more than 2 meters, you are obliged to take necessary precautions to avoid risk. This includes getting the right skills and equipment on how to use them. You are also obliged to establish a rescue plan and risk assessment. Here are some important aspects about safety when working at height.

Hazards

Some of the hazards of working at height are pretty obvious, but some of them might be even unknown for most people. Let’s look at them:

• Falling: It seems pretty obvious because it is. Everyone knows that falling from a considerable height is a pretty easy way to die. If you fall from more than one floor, there are good chances of you breaking bones or suffering serious trauma, but after just 5 or 6 floors, falling is almost guaranteed to kill you – especially if your work is done over pavement instead of grass or water. 

• Blood pressure issues: While this is certainly truer when talking about great heights, like after climbing a mountain, there are several buildings in the world that are tall enough for you to have blood pressure issues if you happen to work outside at some of the top floors on a regular basis – skyscrapers need construction workers and window cleaners even at their top floors.

• Suspension trauma: Suspension trauma is an incredibly risky syndrome that can arise in people who hang upright and motionless for extended periods of time. It is characterized for dizziness, nausea, numbness of the legs, headaches and blurred vision and can be fatal if you are alone and pass out, since the blood pools on your legs and doesn’t reach your head, which can lead to death by oxygen deprivation of the brain. 

• Trauma: Especially if your work involves hanging with a harness at very high places, the winds at certain heights can be amazingly powerful and if you don’t take the proper precautions, a wind current could drag you and smash you against the building you are working on.

Necessary equipment

As you can tell by the last point, working at height can be very dangerous. Therefore, special equipment is necessary no matter what your job is, and there are certain jobs that require extra special tools to be done with a lower risk of injuries.

• Harness: If you are going to be working at height above two or three floors, you are going to need a harness firmly secured to a structure to break your fall safely if you happen to slip or fall.

• Hard hat: Even when at considerable heights a helmet probably would not make much of a difference, if you’re only working a few meters above the surface, a hard hat could literally save your life by protecting your head if you fall and your harness doesn’t work for any reason.

• Tool belt and gloves: When construction workers are building something at the top a skyscraper, one more risk arises: just dropping a hammer or screwdriver by accident can result in a serious or fatal injury for anyone below you if it hits him, since gravity imprints amazing accelerations on any object on free fall. Therefore, tool belts to secure any tools you’re using and gloves to prevent accidental dropping are a must.

Skills needed

As you can probably tell by now, working at height is not a job for anyone. Besides being audacious and not being afraid of heights, you also need these skills:

• The ability to make decisions under pressure: When an eventuality comes and you are tenths of feet above the ground, you need to make quick decisions without losing your mind. The difference between freaking out and remembering the particular security protocol for emergencies of your line of work can very well be your life or death.

• General coolness: Even if disasters don’t occur naturally very often, a bad situation can easily be created by anyone who loses its cool. When your life is –literally- hanging from a rope, you need the ability to focus on the job you need to do without thinking of all the horrifying consequences of falling or dropping things. If you are constantly worrying about what may happen to you, a fellow worker or an innocent passerby, you are more likely to make a mistake that results in tragedy.

• Hand and feet dexterity: Driving a nail fifty feet above the ground is not the same thing as doing it in your backyard. With colder temperatures, stronger wind currents and the stakes as high as they are when working at great heights, you need amazing dexterity for doing the job while keeping yourself safe and dealing with any situation that can strike suddenly without endangering anyone. 

If you are planning on doing any work at height, we strongly suggest you participate in a work at heights course, get the right skills and equipment and follow local regulations.