IT’S NATIONAL LADDER SAFETY MONTH… YEAR… ALWAYS.

At Helmkamp, we often discuss the fact that falls are consistently a top 3 leading cause of death in construction. Falls from ladders account for about 25% of those deaths, not to mention the numerous injuries suffered from falling off of ladders in our industry.

We discuss this often because ladder safety can easily get overlooked on construction sites. After all, they’re not particularly difficult to use. We all likely have them in our homes as well. Then why do these ladder-related injuries and deaths happen so frequently?

It is believed that ladders are such a common piece of equipment on job sites, that there is a false sense of ease when using them that leads to complacency. This complacency results in incorrect ladder choice or a hastened improper setup and use, which leads to unnecessary falls.

National Ladder Safety Month in March allows us to hyper-tune our focus on ladder safety training and precautions that should be present year-round regardless. We will continue to discuss ladder safety regularly but let’s take the added opportunity that National Ladder Safety Month affords us to remind each other of these 3 key areas for ladder safety success:

1. Choose the right ladder.
2. Correctly use the ladder.
3. Properly maintain the ladder.

We celebrate National Ladder Safety Month at Helmkamp because it’s important to remind ourselves how dangerous ladders can be. It’s even more important to realize it’s not just Ladder Safety Month, but Ladder Safety ALWAYS.