Following an apprentice’s 4.7 metre fall at a residential construction site in Camberwell, WorkSafe has issued a Safety Alert for employers and employees who erect or manage hanging bracket scaffolds.
The apprentice fell when a nailed timber guardrail to which the scaffold had been attached partially detached from the second storey window opening. The apprentice had climbed on the timber guardrail because there was no safe access point to the hanging bracket scaffold.
Hanging bracket scaffolds are usually set up between heights of 2.7 and 5.2 m. They are installed around the outside of a house and typically accessed from inside the house. There must be a safe and appropriate access point, such as an intermediate set of steps or a secured ladder that extends at least 900mm past the landing or departure point. A-frame ladders are not designed to access a hanging bracket scaffold.
When working above two meters employers have legal duties and obligations under Parts 3.3 (Prevention of falls) and 5.1 (Construction) of the OHS Regulations. WorkSafe publishes a Scaffolding industry standard, a compliance code for the prevention of falls in housing construction, and free tools and resources like this Falls prevention checklist. They also have many videos, in many languages, on their WorkSafe Victoria YouTube channel, so that employees and their employers can be sure they have all the information they need to ensure that everyone goes home safely.
You can find more information about managing the risks or working at heights on our OHS Reps Prevention of Falls page.
Read more: WorkSafe Victoria| Safety Alert: Hanging bracket scaffolds