Date of incident: May 2021
Notice of incident number: 2021188270008
Employers: Window cleaning companies (2; parent and franchise); rope access and rope rescue equipment supplier

Incident summary
A rope access technician (a worker of the franchise) was cleaning external windows of an eight-storey building. When the worker had finished cleaning the fourth-floor windows and was descending to the third floor, his main line was severed at a friction point, and his safety line did not arrest his fall. The worker fell approximately 11 m to the ground below and was seriously injured.

Investigation conclusions

Cause

• Ineffective edge protection used. The worker fell when the main line in his two-rope system was severed by the edge of a glass pergola that he had rappelled over and was working under. The canvas sleeve-style edge protection device that had been provided by the parent company was inadequate and failed to withstand the friction created by the glass edge combined with the worker’s lateral movement below. When the glass edge cut through the canvas edge protection device, the main line was exposed to the same friction, which ultimately severed the rope.
• Mobile fall arrester failed to engage. The fall arrester on the safety line failed to engage and stop the worker’s fall after the main line was severed.

Contributing factors

• Lack of direction on selection and use of edge protection. The supplier failed to provide direction on the selection and safe use of the edge protection device it supplied to the parent company. The parent company failed to develop its own procedures for safe use of the edge protection device that it provided to its franchisee.
• Inadequate worker training and instruction. The Society of Professional Rope Access Technicians’ (SPRAT’s) “Safe Practices for Rope Access Work” manual and training for rope access technicians lacked information on how to select and safely use edge protection.
• No standard for edge protection. Neither Schedule 34-A of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation, “Standards for Equipment Used in Rope Access Systems,” nor any of the four groups of publications identified in section 34.4 (Training and certification) of the Regulation require edge protection to be designed, constructed, or used in accordance with any standard.

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