Helmets

[thebigcheese]

Of the 5 different places I have seen rigging, I have only ever seen one person wear a helmet. At the place where I work we have a shelf of about 20 helmets but are never used.

 

Is this common practise among all theatres? I would have expected it to be a health and safety requirement.

[Tomo]

A lot depends on your local authority as some will insist on it as part of the licence, but as with all this stuff it's down to your risk assessment.

 

Last place I did this assessment we came to the conclusion that the guy up the scaff tower shouldn't wear a helmet as it reduces his vision for no gain as there's nothing to bang his head on, but the guys near the scaff must wear helmets in case a gelframe, barndoor or similar gets dropped.

 

A helmet won't help if a whole fixture falls, but it will save you if something smaller drops - which I've seen more than once!

 

This was our assessment, but you work in a different venue.

[Pete]

Tomo's got a good point knee jerk-everyone MUST wear a hard hat decisions are a bad idea,as is using the wrong equipment for the job.

If the guy on the tower is wearing a standard "hat" there's the risk of it falling from his head and actually becoming a falling object.

However,when working at height especially in roof's I tend to wear a lid to stop the small knocks,I tend to take!But mynes a Petzl lid designed for the job!

[bruce]

Similar situation in a different environment - when my (cable installation) team are working on a construction site, or around scaffold etc they would wear hard hats. But when working at height or in a roof space a "bump cap" might be more appropriate. It depends on the precise situation, so you need to do a risk assessment.

 

For anyone that's not familiar with them, a "bump cap" looks a bit like a baseball cap on steroids, generally with an ABS inner frame. They don't give the same protection from falling objects as a hard hat - they're really just intended to protect you if you bump or scrape your head off (say) a low roof or bar. But as they only weigh about 150g, the danger of them becoming a falling object is minimised.

http://img-europe.electrocomponents.com/largeimages/CH350166-01.jpg

 

Edit: these pics are from RS - rswww.com - but any safety gear supplier should be able to supply them.

[thebigcheese]

This was our assessment, but you work in a different venue.

Replace the word 'venue' with the word 'school' and you see why I'm asking. I was just wondering if the standard was for to people to wear them or not. The guy who supervises the rigs has never even mentioned the helmets, IIRC he keeps his saved shows on floppies which he hides inside them as he know they are not going to be found.

 

I am in two frames of mind, whether to wear a helmet and be the 'odd one out' or not wear one and compromise safety.

[J Pearce]

If you feel you should be wearing one, and wearing one will not put anyone else at danger or make you more of a danger to yourslef (obscuring vision etc), then wear one.

 

DO NOT worry about being the odd one out.

[Jivemaster]

It is your head! But dont allow the hat to be a hazard to others (should it fall off!)

[Guest lightnix]

...A helmet won't help if a whole fixture falls, but it will save you if something smaller drops...

Beg to differ, but a helmet can be of at least partial help in reducing injury from a blow to the head by a heavy object.

 

Last place I did this assessment we came to the conclusion that the guy up the scaff tower shouldn't wear a helmet as it reduces his vision for no gain as there's nothing to bang his head on, but the guys near the scaff must wear helmets in case a gelframe, barndoor or similar gets dropped.

Again, I'm not saying "I'm right", but that also differs from the "way I've been brought up". Obviously I don't know your venue or rigging methods and it may well be that it's perfectly safe for your crew to work at height without head protection. However, just for the record, many people working at height (e.g. in rooves, on trusses) are required to wear a helmet. Obviously a hard hat is not appropriate, not only does it limit vision, it also has no chin strap and could fall off your head, onto someone below. At height, a more appropriate solution is a "skull cap" style mountaineering helmet, which has a chin strap and does not obscure vision. After all, people do sometimes bang their heads on things while up scopes or towers and there is always the possiblity that something may fall on them from a greater height.

 

There's a post in here somewhere (which I can't find right now, as dictated by Murphy's Law), that explains how helmets "work": When something unexpectedly hits you, hard on the head, your knees bend sharply in a reflex action, sometimes causing you to fall to the floor, even if the object that struck you wasn't very big or heavy. A helmet "enhances" this reflex, by protecting your head from immediate damage, therby allowing your reflexes and knees to do their jobs more efficiently.

 

Alright, if one of the Clay Paky Stage Zoom 1200s that were being roped down today had broken free and hit me on the head, I would probably have wound up in hospital; but I am certain that I would have got out of hospital far sooner and recovered faster and more completely, as a result of wearing a helmet.

 

In all the places where I've seen helmet regs introduced, a slow battle of wills has commenced, with the "stuff it" lobby usually carrying the day in the end One classic example was at a certain large exhibition venue in SW London on a certain show with lots of cars. The venue management made helmets compulsory, with a £5 deposit for one at the gate if you hadn't brought your own and a £10 on-the-spot fine for anyone seen not wearing one while working. The rule was vigourously enforced to begin with, but by the end of Day2 they'd stopped checking; by the end of Day 3 bare heads had started to appear and by the end of Day 5, helmet-wearers were very much in the minority :)

 

AFAIK, if you're an employer, you not only have to provide PPE, but enforce its use as well and if that means dishing out a written warning or two to "protesters" then that's the way it has to be, if only to cover your own and your companies back :(

 

As has been mentioned before (thank you, Mr. Higgs ;) ), PPE should be viewed as a the protection of last resort and, in the ideal world (or even a plain old safe gig), should never actually need to be used.

[Tomo]

But when working at height or in a roof space a "bump cap" might be more appropriate.

Thanks for those - I had no idea such a thing existed!

 

At the time (three years ago), all we knew about was the normal no-chin-strap yellow hard hat.

We decided that the minor risk of minor bumps to one individual against fixtures hung at shoulder height (when on the tower) and the bar they hung from (at roughly eye-level) was preferable to the moderate risk of moderate injury to up to three individuals caused by a falling hard hat.

[Pete]

In all the places where I've seen helmet regs introduced, a slow battle of wills has commenced, with the "stuff it" lobby usually carrying the day in the end One classic example was at a certain large exhibition venue in SW London on a certain show with lots of cars. The venue management made helmets compulsory, with a £5 deposit for one at the gate if you hadn't brought your own and a £10 on-the-spot fine for anyone seen not wearing one while working. The rule was vigorously enforced to begin with, but by the end of Day2 they'd stopped checking; by the end of Day 3 bare heads had started to appear and by the end of Day 5, helmet-wearers were very much in the minority :)

 

AFAIK, if you're an employer, you not only have to provide PPE, but enforce its use as well and if that means dishing out a written warning or two to "protesters" then that's the way it has to be, if only to cover your own and your companies back :(

 

OK,

Im pro hard hat but I find that most helmet regs have been introduced badly and Rather inflexibly. By this I mean that when rigging/flying the use of hard hats are a very good idea.However by day 5 if rigging/focusing etc was complete so no one WAH then where is the need for a hat? Otherwise your suggesting that the rig is unsafe.Or that we should issue the audience with hard hats too.

 

'Tis rather like people wearng them while digging holes.

 

Also I believe it s employers duty to provide PPE but employees duty/choice to use them.Of course this is all subject to risk assesment!

[flypig]

Interestingly enough the baseball cap was the start of hard hats when their top riggers were working on the Hoover damn waaaaaaaaaaaay back then. They used to put two together (one back to front a-la-homeboy style) and pour pitch over them and wait till they hardened - hence 'Hard Hat'. Just a bit of useless trivia.

 

 

Edit:- Unnecessary quotage snipped, please check which "Reply" button you are using! Then try the Spell check

[robloxley]

Obviously a hard hat is not appropriate, not only does it limit vision, it also has no chin strap and could fall off your head, onto someone below.

You can get hard hat with reduced peaks to improve visibility, and also ones with chinstraps, but I take your suggestion

[SparkySteve]

In all the places where I've seen helmet regs introduced, a slow battle of wills has commenced, with the "stuff it" lobby usually carrying the day in the end :P One classic example was at a certain large exhibition venue in SW London on a certain show with lots of cars. The venue management made helmets compulsory, with a £5 deposit for one at the gate if you hadn't brought your own and a £10 on-the-spot fine for anyone seen not wearing one while working. The rule was vigourously enforced to begin with, but by the end of Day2 they'd stopped checking; by the end of Day 3 bare heads had started to appear and by the end of Day 5, helmet-wearers were very much in the minority ;)

 

 

If this is the venue I'm thinking of and where a large entertainments industry trade show is held every year then that still happens... or it certainly did at PLASA this year and various other bits and bobs I've done there. Luckily I'm always prepared (being an old scout an all that :( dib dib dib) but there were a few people cursing first thing in the morning when they had to depart with their money

[Ellis]

I once worked for an engineering company. While moving sites, someone was decommissioning one of the cranes. He knew that the other was going to need decommissioning and, alone in the building without a permit to work on the crane, he climbed up without any safety equipment and his hair brushed on the (still live) three phase bus-bar. He fell and landed on a piece of equipment, breaking his back.

 

The employee in question had previously been disciplined for not following correct safety procedures, but when it came to court the company pleaded guilty because there was no defence against the fact that they had not prevented him from working without following safety procedures!

 

It is not only the employers responsibility to provide safety equipment and set safe qorking practices, they must also enforce their use rigidly.

[bruce]

In a previous job I came across a very similar situation.

 

One person wanted to borrow a certain piece of electronic equipment from another department to carry out an experiment. He was told by management of both departments that he couldn't have it.

 

So he came into the building at the weekend. Using a master key which he had copied without authorisation, he gained access to the other department. He put the equipment which he had been instructed not to use onto an old trolley, wheeled it along the corridor, into the lift, and down to his own department. He then carried out the experiment, which should only have been carried out with at least 2 people present, on his own.

 

He then took it back to the other department.

 

While pushing the trolley out of the lift, the wheel caught in the gap. The equipment fell off the trolley onto his foot. The equipment, worth around 50,000 pounds, was irreparably damaged, and he suffered a broken toe.

 

He successfully claimed damages from his employer.