Introduced to make arrests
March 1st 2008

After looking at many different options for reducing falls from vehicles, including bags, rails, walkways and restraint wires, and having looked at site and vehicle-based systems, Mercian Lifting Gear (UK) believes that the only way to reliably catch a person who falls while moving over loads of differing sizes and types is to provide a mechanism that follows the worker and is automatically activated when he/she slips.

The company has built in several features to its Catchfall product which, it believes, represent a 'second generation' fall arrest system. The site-based system is best planned and installed at the same time as other primary equipment such as cranes.

Twin gantries enable the longest loads to be accessed, and the inertia reel systems ensure that the system is 'arrest ready' while workers move freely over the load, without adjustment, or impeding the unloading/loading process.

Adrian Allen, MD, comments "Our system enables contractors to take control of their responsibility, without fudging by using some of the token solutions available, in order to be seen to conform to the Work at Height Regulations. We wanted to develop a system which actually did what it says on the can – prevent falls from height.

"There are just too many variables on construction sites, not to mention the weather. When you're unloading wet steel you need a system that works. We believe that once a worker is attached to our Catchfall system, our system will catch that person's fall."