Today is your day Boomer! Over 1000 people per day are injured in ladder accidents...and well over 150 die every year in Canada and the United States. And I bet some of these people are Boomers who, as they age, have problems with balance and understanding. Understanding? Yup, some Boomers thinking they are still young and can do all those tough jobs at high elevation....like cleaning gutters!! According to OHSCanada.com, here are several things we do wrong on ladders: (1)Overreaching is one of the most common mistakes, one that tends to result in falls. Often, a person on a ladder will stretch to grab or touch an object or surface that is out of reach, and the resulting change in the centre of gravity can cause the ladder to tip over.(2) Another frequent mistake people make is to stand on the top rung, or top cap, of an A-frame ladder. Without higher rungs or rails to grasp, it is too easy to lose balance and topple over. (3)Sometimes the real problem is that the person is simply using the wrong-sized ladder for the task at hand. For example, if you had a taller ladder, you wouldn’t need to stand on the top rung. (4)One surprisingly frequent cause of accidents is when a worker descends a ladder and steps off a rung too early; this accounts for about 1/5 of all ladder accidents. Boomers, we have to be smart about this....and know our limitations! By the way, we can hire people to do these jobs! Cheers.

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