Bezüglich der Todesursache zeigte sich, daß besonders Opfer von Absturzunfällen ein stark erhöhtes Risiko haben, an einer Lungenembolie zu versterben, unabhängig von der Sturzhöhe.

Auch im Verlauf über die Woche kann anhand der vorliegenden Zahlen die früher häufig nachgewiesene erhöhte Montagsmortalität nicht mehr bestätigt werden.

Quelle:
Sonja Gawehn, Tödliche Arbeitsunfälle, 1991 – 2004. Frankfurt am Main 2007
Referent: Prof. Dr. H. Bratzke

Abstract
Absolute numbers of fatal occupational accidents have continuously decreased during the 1991-2004 period examined here. This continues a positive trend, which was already ascertained in the preceeding period. Moreover, the trend is observable in the present sample as well as in the overall development in reunited Germany. However, this picture is somewhat altered if the numbers are subjected to a comparison with the equally decreasing number of those employed full-time in the predominantly affected sectors, such as the building industry and the industrial economy. Viewed against this background, a further decrease of fatal occupational accidents turns out to be unlikely, despite considerably improved conditions of workspace safety, while the relative decrease is much less prominent than expected.
The age peak of accident casualties is considerably above the average of all employees, pointing towards a decidedly increased mortality at advanced age. Mortality of foreign employees is also distinctly increased, and does not mirror the relative proportion of foreigners employed in the affected work places. This is even more obvious with respect to free-fall accidents, which constitute the largest group among the accident mechanisms… The much quoted claim of an increased monday mortality could not be confirmed any longer.
As far as the causes of death are concerned, it emerged that victims of free-fall accidents suffer from a strongly increased risk to die from pulmonary embolism, regardless of fall height.
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MORE about ladder accidents:  ILMAC – INTERNATIONAL LADDER MANUFACTURER’S CONVENTION

Mit in Kraft treten der Vereinbarungen der Mitgliedsstaaten der Welthandelsorganisation (WTO) gegen die Einschraenkung des freien Wettbewerbs und Handels durch technische Normen – insbesondere “Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade” (TBT) – sind die alten, am Produkt orientierten Regeln und Normen fuer die Sicherheit tragbarer Leitern und Treppen ( z.B. DIN-EN 131, etc.) obsolet geworden und duerfen nicht mehr als gesetzliche Regeln verwendet werden, solange nicht wissenschaftlich stringent nachgewiesen ist, dass technische Normen, Konstruktionsbeschreibungen oder Bedienungsanleitungen fuer tragbare Leitern und Treppen bei Nichteinhaltung der Gesundheit schaden oder zu einer Beeintraechtigung der nationalen Sicherheit fuehren. Da diese Nachweise fehlen, ist auch die Zertifizierung von tragbaren Leitern und Treppen nach den vorliegenden Normen innerhalb der WTO-Staaten fuer eine gesetzliche Regelung der Sicherheit im Umgang mit Leitern obsolet geworden. Wer dies bestreitet macht sich unlauteren Wettbewerbs schuldig. – Mehr dazu -

Gli standard per scale (UNI-EN 131, 14183  e.a.) sono diventati obsoleti con i regolamenti per il libero commercio della World Trade Organization (WTO), in specie lo “Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade” (TBT). Secondo i regolamenti del WTO, tutte le norme e gli standard per scale portatili sono senza valore per la sicurezza e perciò senza alcun obbligo per il produttore, venditore e/o utilizzatore finché non è stato dimostrato con evidenza scientifica, che la loro non-applicazione comporterebbe un danno alla salute o alla Sicurezza Nazionale. – Altro -

Les normes techniques, comme p.e. la norme EN 131 et les certifications sont obsolètes et sans obligation légale, depuis les accords entre les pays membres de l’Organisation Mondiale du Commerce (OMC) ont été activés, en particulier l’Accord sur les obstacles techniques au commerce (OTC). Depuis, ni les organisations privées ou institutions publiques au sein de l’OMC plus les pays sont autorisés à prescrire la manière de concevoir, de produire ou de distribuer des échelles portatives si elle n’est pas démontré avec des preuves scientifiques, que la non application d’une description technique va nuire à la santé d’une personne ou la « sécurité nationale ». C’est pourquoi les normes techniques applicables aux échelles portatives, sont devenues obsolètes en raison de l’insuffisance de preuves scientifiques. – More -

* Complacency about the danger
* Dizziness and poor balance
* Fatigue and weak muscles and bones
* Poor vision
* Poor hearing and exposure to noise
* Ladder touching live electrical conductors
* Ladder slipping at top
* Ladder slipping at base
* Ladder resting against moveable objects
* Falling material

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Mark Rosenberg:
There are various reasons why so many falls occur. As you age, you are more likely to be diagnosed with conditions that cause balance problems. Here are some of the most common health problems that effect balance:

1) Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) – More likely to occur in people over 60, BPPV causes a brief, but intense spinning sensation when you move your head. The vertigo is most pronounced when you get out of bed or tilt your head to look up. This is caused by calcium stones in the inner ear, which may be the result of an infection, injury or aging.

2) Labyrinthitis – This inflammation of the inner ear results in dizziness and loss of balance. It affects the labyrinth, or the organ that controls balance.

3) Ménière’s Disease- While the cause is unknown, Ménière’s can occur at any age. It is a balance disorder resulting in vertigo, intermittent hearing loss, ringing in the ears, and a feeling of fullness in the ears.

4) Medication – Blood pressure medications are often the source of balance problems. A class of drugs known as “ototoxic” have the side effect of damaging the inner ear, therefore effecting balance.

5) Stroke – This disease of the circulatory system not only causes falls in some cases, but can also be the source of balance problems.

comment:

We wonder if similar ladders are reliable? Glass fiber reinforced polyester composites may undergo chemical and physical aging. The durability is governed mainly by the matrix degradation. The mechanical property reduction is not induced only by hydrolytic aging but rather by the formation of cracks due to moisture swelling, stress or temperature. That is the reason why it became of major interest to understand the microcrack nucleation mechanism in neat matrices, to study the crack propagation, and to evaluate the incidence of cracking on the tensile propery loss.

The “Gaps Analysis to NIOSH” is a “Review of the scientific literature on injuries from falls from (and with) ladders” of the Advanced Technologies and Laboratories, Inc. (ATL) in Germantown, Maryland, in the USA.

The ATL-Report confirms many safety aspects in handling ladders :

• complacency about danger
• fatalities increase with age
• basic importance of dizziness and vertigo
• accessories are not effective

Furthermore the report confirms the gap in scientific research on accidents with portable ladders – including the difficulty of any sort of holistic approach and scientific analysis.

We need to fully understand the reasons behind this lack of insight as a premise to start searching new ways to reduce ladder accidents. So let me try to submit you some observations and suggestions.

1. first of all, we don’t know the real number of (fatal) accidents involving portable ladders; we can assume that most ladder accidents are not reported because:

• there is no witness
• describing an accident is not easy (a posteriori, nobody knows if the broken ladder is one of the causes or the result of an accident)
• the persons involved in ladder accidents fear bad reputation or simply remove/refuse the memory of crucial/shocking situations

2. Normally reports on ladder accidents are not real-time; accidents are reported by people which had suffered the ladder accident, and often are still shocked. Scientific research needs real time observation or simulation under laboratory conditions; both are very expensive projects, even if a standard photographic equipment availability in certain workplaces could help.

3. Scientific research of ladder accidents under real and lab conditions seems an easy task, as far as the “ladders” and “ambient conditions” are considered: both are completely known and easily described. This is not so when we consider the “vertigo” and “dizziness” variables: the person on the ladder itself is a variable, and not a well known one. Nonetheless, it is probably a more important variable than the “ladder” and “ambient conditions” for the sake of understanding the dynamics of ladder accidents.

See e.g. Barrett C. Miller, who wrote in 1998:
“To stand, walk, or climb without falling, we must maintain our center of mass over and within a base area. When someone is standing erect, the base can be considered the normal footprint. The shape, size, and position of the base changes depending on the pattern of movement and the activity. When walking, we constantly readjust our body segments over our base to maintain stability. The brain, vision, body condition, and the nature of the contact with the surface all contribute to the sensitive balance required to maintain walking stability. If a foot slips or is mis-positioned, the center of gravity shifts outside the base area. When this happens, we shift our body parts in an attempt to regain equilibrium. If the center of mass cannot be shifted back over the base area, we fall.”

See also the results stemming from a medical research branch called “Neurootology”:
The human beings are connected with their environment through their sense organs. Ears, eyes, nose and tongue are peripherical sensorial organs, that on being excited by an environmental stimulus, are able of registering said information and transferring same to the brain superior centers. An answer to these stimuli is produced by the brain or central computer. NEUROOTOLOGY is the branch of medicine devoted to studying the aforementioned process

4. So scientific research of ladder accidents is expensive because it needs:

• permanent observation of working on ladders under different ambient conditions
• permanent observation of working on ladders with different operators
• permanent observation of working on different types of ladders
• clinical control of operators
• development of kinetic models for different types of ladders and ambient conditions in order to reproduce fatal situations; without such models any effort in scientific research would remain uncontrollable and spoiled of practical results.

5. Probably ladder manufacturers and assurance companies are not inclined to promote scientific research of ladder accidents: “cost” seems only one of the reasons.

6. Ladders are low cost volume products, easy to handle, used in millions of different situations and jobs, perceived by the general public as a completely understood object and that makes it hard to find a reason to fund research of substantial innovations.

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Let me say – off records – that the functionality and technical structure of ladders have not changed in thousands of years, and ladder accidents like atavistic memories seem to belong to one of the best protected taboo-zones of our human societies.

Nevertheless, I think there is a way out, and the solution could be a policy encompassing:

• Permanent, standardized television monitoring of ladder works, in preparation and support of forthcoming
• Scientific research of ladder accidents (comment written by E. Rupp)

The Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system (HACCP) is a preventative food safety management system, that can be applied throughout the food supply chain from primary production to the consumer. HACCP is internationally recognized as the most effective way to produce safe food, providing a structure for objective assessment of what can go wrong and requiring controls to be put in place to prevent problems. As part of the Blackwell Food Industry Briefing Series, this important book provides a concise, easy-to-use, quick reference aimed at busy food-industry professionals, students or others who need to gain an outline working knowledge. The book is structured so that the reader can read through it in a few hours and arm themselves with the essentials of the topic. Clearly presented, this HACCP briefing includes checklists, bullet points, flow charts, schematic diagrams for quick reference, and at the start of each section the authors have provided useful key points summary boxes.

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Electrical energy that can be stored on the human body and then released in an ESD is measured in milljoules (mJ) and is governed by the capacitance of the body (C) and the potential or voltage attained (V), according to the formula E = ½ CV2. The capacitance of a person standing will usually lie in the range 100-300 picofarads (pF) and human body potentials in excess of 20,000 volts are unlikely to occur. Taking the maximum in each case, yields an energy level of 60 mJ, this represents a relatively small amount of energy compared with say a household light bulb which consumes a 1,000 times more energy every second.
The electrical current flowing during an ESD can be measured on a fast response oscilloscope. This quantifies the other two important characteristics of an electrostatic discharge – a relatively high current which maybe several amperes dissipated within a fraction of a microsecond.

The effects of electrical current passing through the human body are covered at length in the International Electro Technical Commission document IEC 479-2:1987. In this document it indicates that a transient or capacitive discharge, as is the case with static electricity, requires energy in excess of 5 Joules (5000mJ) to produce a direct serious risk to health. Although it is practically impossible to store this level of electrostatic energy on the human body, case histories have shown a number of accidents due to shock reaction. Such accidents include falling from ladders, involuntary recoil and dropping or releasing loads.
Footnote: In some industrial processes, discharges of several Joules due to static electricity can occur under extreme conditions. In such cases the static charge accumulates not on the human body but on highly polarised materials where the effective capacitance is very high. These situations can give rise to extremely energetic discharges resulting in severe physiological effects.

Wolfson Electrostatics, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ. United Kingdom. Telephone: +44 (0) 2380 552266 / 592509 Fax: +44 (0) 2380 593015

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