Quote:
Originally Posted by bloocrab
Big difference there Bob, ....YOU experienced yours, I only witnessed mine. Funny how your pain probably subsided during your youth...and now as you've aged, it's raising its ugly head again....and it ain't going away. Makes pounding the sand that much harder, especially on the hips...be thankful that you've taken care of your body over the years. 
Your spliced wooden jack pole story reminded me of something...no injuries, just comical. My BIL owns a painting company...I picked up some extra work with him one summer. He's not one to maintain equipment, so he too had similar spliced staging. We're painting a 3-story tenement house in FR, staging is already up. I notice the spliced jack poles, doesn't look solid enough for me, so I question it. He laughs and tells me not to worry.  |
Gilly.... your scenario is alot like my situation was.
We were installing a gable end attic fan at the highest point of a two story building....once the staging was jacked up as high as it would go....against the brace....I could see the jack pole bending badly right near the splice. I expressed my concern to my much more experienced boss, and told him I thought we should add another brace...something I already had learned to do as a rookie sidewaller. He scoffed at my suggestion and said.." We'll be done in ten minutes....forget about it" Well... well ...five minutes later as I stepped onto the staging from the ladder...I suddenly felt nothing was there as the whole thing came crashing down. I hit the concrete below on all fours....with my head against the ground I saw a staging plank just miss my noggin then various tools and a can of paint. I managed to crawl about ten feet away and rolled onto my back......I looked up and saw my boss hanging from the roof....he was hollering for someone to get a ladder. My younger brother 15 years old had been hired to clean up old roofing shingles from the bushes around the building as we had re roofed the previous week.....he managed to lift the heavy ladder but it crashed through a second floor window instead. My boss managed to drop onto a portico roof not far below him. People were coming out of the building now to see the commotion. Police came... then the ambulance. Ruined my whole summer
