This is where the Catch-22 exists. The harnesses that are being used on the market today cannot meet this standard. The present harnesses allow a fall distance of nine and a half feet. That is a six foot lanyard plus the three and a half foot "elongation deceleration device" or the EDD. The EDD is a package approximately 6 inches long, which contains three and half feet of folded lanyard. It is portrayed as an additional safety device in the event of a fall. In actuality this elongation deceleration device, which will expand in the event of a fall, allows the user to fall an additional three a half foot over and above the six foot length of the lanyard. In order for a harness in use today to meet the standard, using an elongation device, it would have to be wrapped three and a half feet around the structure the user is attached to, to lessen the entire length of the lanyard to within six feet if a fall occurs.

The situation produced in this scenario is that workers are provided with a harness with a six foot lanyard which includes an elongation device of an additional three and a half feet. In the event of a fall the elongation device is going to expand and the worker will fall nine and a half feet. Since buildings are built in ten foot increments you are going to contact a lower level. Therefore, the harnesses being used today are not within compliance.

You, as the worker, should see this from the worker’s perspective. There is a major gap presented here. What is written on paper and what actually works in the field are two different things. A worker either uses the harness with the working room needed to complete the job and at the same time is out of compliance, or he ties off with no working room and loses his job when he cannot perform his task quickly and efficiently. If he attempts to lessen the length of the harness to be in compliance, he is reducing himself to a working distance of two and a half feet or less. That in effect is a positioning harness and does not allow the movement necessary to get the job done. The worker is caught in a Catch-22. No one is going to do this. These men are there to feed their family and they would much rather take the risk of a fall than to lose their job. So he wears the harness and should a fall occur he is not protected from contacting the structure he is tied off to and in many cases these falls result in major injury and sometimes death. At the same time the worker is found to not be in compliance and any hope of financial restitution is eliminated.