Law Department notice on WTC document preservation, Oct 2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Standard Operating Procedure Page 4 of 15 Fall Protection

It is measured as the distance between the location of an employee's body belt or body harness attachment point at the moment of activation (at the onset of fall arrest forces) of the deceleration device during a fall, and the location of that attachment point after the employee comes to a full stop.

Equivalent - means alternative designs, materials, or methods to protect against a hazard which the employer can demonstrate will provide an equal or greater degree of safety for employees than the methods, materials or designs specified in the standard.

Failwe - means load refusal, breakage, or separation of component parts. Load refusal is the point where the ultimate strength is exceeded.

Freefall - means the act of falling before a personal fall arrest system begins to apply force to arrest the fall.

Freefall distance - means the vertical displacement of the fall arrest attachment point on the employee's body belt or body harness between onset of the fall and just before the system begins to apply force to arrest the fall. This distance excludes deceleration distance, and lifeline/lanyard elongation, but includes any deceleration device slide distance or self-retracting lifeline/lanyard extension before they operate and fall arrest forces occur.

Guarti-ail system - means a barrier erected to prevent employees from failing to lower levels.

Hole - means a gap or void 2 inches (5.1 cm) or more in its least dimension, in a floor, roof, or other walking/working surface.

Infeasible - means that it is impossible to perform the construction work using a conventional fall protection system (i.e., guardrail system, safety net system, or personal fall arrest system) or that it is technologically impossible to use any one of these systems to provide fall protection.

Lanyard - means a flexible line of rope, wire rope, or strap which generally has a connector at each end for cormecting the body belt or body harness to a deceleration device, lifeline, or anchorage.

Leading edge - means the edge of a floor, roof, or formwork for a floor or other walking/working surface (such as the deck) which changes location as additional floor, roof, decking, or formwork sections are placed, formed, or constructed. A leading edge is considered to be an "unprotected side and edge" dirring periods when it is not actively and continuously under construction.

Lifeline - means a component consisting of a flexible line for connection to an anchorage at one end to hang vertically (vertical lifeline), or for connection to anchorages at both ends to stretch horizontally (horizontal lifeline), and which serves as a means for connecting other components of a personal fall arrest system to the anchorage.

Low-slope roof- a roof having a slope less than or equal to 4 in 12 (vertical to horizontal).

Lower levels - means those areas or surfaces to which an employee can fall. Such areas or surfaces include, but are not limited to, ground levels, floors, platforms, ramps, runways, excavations, pits, tanks, material, water, equipment, structures, or portions thereof.

Mechanical equipment - means all motor or human propelled wheeled equipment used for roofing work, except wheelbarrows and mopcarts.

Opening - means a gap or void 30 inches (76 cm) or more high and 18 inches (48 cm) or more wide, in a wall or partition, through which employees can fell to a lower level.

Overhand bricklaying and related work - means the process of laying bricks and masonry units such that the surface of the wall to be jointed is on the opposite side of the wall from the mason, requiring the mason to lean over the wall to complete the work. Related work includes mason tending and electrical installation incorporated into the brick wall during the overhand bricklaying process.

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