Chuck McCown wrote: > Back in the day, we climbed wooden poles with nothing other than our hooks > and hands. Once you got up, then you would throw the one single belt around > the pole. Most of the time the drop was between 20 and 30 feet. Enough to > hurt you pretty bad but probably not kill you. I "burned" one pole one > time. Torn shirt, splinters in my arms. Funny how quick you can hug a pole > when you hook hits a knot in the pole. (The reason it happened was I was > talking to and showing off for a former girlfriend). In any event, it was > the preferred way of climbing. Much quicker and easier, and actually, if > the pole was nice and soft, was very safe. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "George Rogato" <wi...@oregonfast.net> > To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org> > Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 10:12 AM > Subject: Re: [WISPA] Tower accident > > I can remember seeing guys climb poles, just like you described.
When we first started we knew nothing. A guy who I had wired his house had a big picture hanging on his wall. It was him flying through the air hanging off a cable attached to a helicopter. He explained thats how they get you out into the middle of no where to work on transmition lines. Was a pretty cool picture. Anyways, he offered to climb for us. So eventually when we went to build out our first tower we used him. He was retired 60 or so. That guy was like a monkey climbing a tree. He used a waste belt and hardly ever tied off. The one tower we were on had horizontal members that he would just walk as if it was a side walk, no belt no tie off, just a monkey. The tower had a ladder and a couple platforms at the top to work from. Anyways, he always would complain that he needed someone else to climb with him cause it was lonely up on that platform alone. So we had my son's and others go up there with him. Nobody ever taught us how to climb or how dangerous it was. Or what safety precautions to take. Until Bob M. (on his blackberry) pointed out when a wisp posted a picture of is guy free climbing a 400' with sneakers and no belt. I shiver at the thoughts of what could have happened. I could have lost a son or worker because we were stupid. And we never used the old guy again, he was dangerous. We talk all the time, and he always offers to climb for us, but I just tell him maybe next time. Not sure about others, but I think Bob M's posting have saved a couple lives. Thats why I wanted to querry deeper, so anyone else reading that doesn't know any better who is new to the industry understands safety aspect of climbing. George -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
