Pro Clean Direct

🚨 THIS IS WHY WE DON’T TAKE SHORTCUTS AT HEIGHT 🚨

This footage shows a worker falling through a fragile rooflight. In a split second, what started as a routine job could have become a fatality.

Every year, workers are killed or suffer life-changing injuries after falling through fragile surfaces. Rooflights, skylights and asbestos cement sheets are among the biggest dangers when working on roofs.

The question we should all be asking is:

❓ Was there a suitable and sufficient risk assessment?

❓ Was there a safe system of work?

❓ Were edge protection, covers, crawl boards or a MEWP considered?

❓ Were workers trained and supervised correctly?

Under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, employers have a legal duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of their employees.

The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require employers to assess risks and implement suitable control measures before work begins.

The Work at Height Regulations 2005 are even more specific. They require work at height to be properly planned, supervised and carried out by competent people. They also require employers to avoid work at height where possible and prevent falls wherever reasonably practicable.

A rooflight is not a safe place to stand.

A rooflight is a fragile surface.

A fragile surface should be treated as a hole.

No job, no deadline and no quote is worth a life.

As safety professionals we have a responsibility to challenge unsafe practices, educate others and ensure everyone goes home at the end of the day.

Remember: A RAMS document isn’t something to tick off in the van. It’s a document designed to stop incidents exactly like this from happening.

“People sometimes think health and safety is paperwork. It isn’t. Health and safety is the difference between going home for dinner or being carried off a site in an ambulance.”

I know some of the people carrying out this type of work will be reading this post right now.

This isn’t an attack. This isn’t me trying to score points.

This is me asking you to stop and think.

Fragile rooflights are not designed to take your weight. One wrong step and your life can change forever.

Please stop taking the risk.

Get the right equipment.

Get the right training.

Use the right access method.

Complete suitable RAMS.

Challenge unsafe instructions.

Most importantly, make sure you go home at the end of the day.

Your family doesn’t care whether the job was finished on time.

They care that you walk through the front door tonight.

Stop it. Be safe. Go home.