Forty feet up or more. (All photos by Jan Thomas)

I’ve dipped into my photo collection to start out this year’s blogging.  It’s been several years since I took this series of pictures from a public street near Circle Safety’s Richmond offices. 

Look closely… Two guys, on an aluminum work board (not a two-point suspended scaffold), one with a hard hat and PFAS in use, the other getting a good suntan.  The horizontal white lines you see are ropes strung through small diameter PVC pipe, one on each side of the work board.  Acting or at least looking like guardrails?  Look closer and you’ll see more problems.

The biggest problem could be missed but I believe is the root cause of the observed hazards – these guys are working for the company that won the low bid to do cleaning and painting of this tower.  I don’t know for sure but I’ll bet they were required to provide their own equipment.

I want to say right now that although I do have my “hazard radar” turned on almost all the time, I very rarely make a referral of an unsafe condition to OSHA.  It has to be a true imminent danger situation which I believed this to be.

(In a later blog I would like to speak to the issue of a “duty to respond.”  I have spoken with many professions including enforcement officers, emergency responders and public officials who have admitted to the dilemma of not always knowing if they should ignore something or get involved.) 

It wasn’t my jobsite or my client, but on this day I decided that I had to save two lives.  I took the photos and contacted my local VOSH office. Within half an hour, these lucky workers were on the ground talking to a VOSH inspector. 

Rock climbing equipment attached to wire rope….

I say “lucky” because the photo below is a close-up of their sole anchor point. 

What do you think?