Marine Corps Base Quantico employees who work from heights may find themselves at the fire department training range on the west side of base, learning how to prevent falls, before the year is out. It will be the first hands-on fall protection training the base Safety Division has offered.

The Marine Corps adopted the Navy’s fall protection program in August, and Kevin Jones, the base fall protection program manager, is in the process of combing through the 273-page document to adapt the program specifically for Quantico.

“There is a very dire need to have our fall program up and running because [employees] do a lot of activities that need to be monitored,” Jones said.

Until now, Quantico has followed the minimum fall protection standards set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said Kurt Vimont, manager of the Safety Division’s Training Branch, noting that the new program has more stringent standards for safety precautions as well as training requirements. The training has both online and hands-on elements.

Safety Division has been offering classroom training on the use of gear like guardrails, harnesses and lifelines, but relied on the units to provide any hands-on training, Jones said. And, unlike the old program, the new training is not only for those who use the safety gear but also their supervisors.

“So when they see an employee being complacent, or they’re not wearing the right gear, they can call them out on it,” Vimont said. “There’s a lot of information here that’s going to change the way we do business in the Marine Corps for fall protection.”

Between the maintenance workers at Marine Corps Community Services and the base Facilities Maintenance Section, and the Communications Electronics Division employees who work on antennas and control towers, Jones figured between 100 and 150 Quantico workers will eventually need to take the new training.

The online portion, which the Navy already offers through the Enterprise Safety Application Management Services system, consists of a two-hour course and a four-hour course.

Jones said he expects to identify everyone on base who needs the training, contact the trainees-to-be a         nd register them for the training in ESAMS by mid-November. Once they’ve completed the online portion, they’ll get a certificate and then do about a day’s worth of hands-on training, inspecting and using fall protection gear out at the fire department range.

The Safety Division hopes to offer the training at least four times a year and run an annual refresher course, Jones said.

Vimont said the division will give base personnel priority for the training but will also offer it to tenant commands.

He said workers sometimes ignore fall protection requirements because they can be expensive and make work take longer, and the new regulations won’t change that. In fact, they will make a lot of jobs take longer than they would otherwise, Vimont said.  For example, the standards that have been used at the base require fall protection at heights of six feet or more, while the new program will keep that standard for construction work but change it to four feet for general industry work.

However, he noted that, according to the new fall protection guide, falls from heights are the most common cause of work-related injuries and fatalities in the construction industry and the fourth leading cause in general industry. In 2011, there were 666 deaths due to slips, trips and falls in the United States, with 541 of those resulting from falls from heights[T1] , according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“No job is worth you getting injured or losing your life,” Jones said. “Don’t get complacent just because you’ve done it 600 times. All it takes is that one split second.”

— Writer: mdicicco@quanticosentryonline.com