Why adopting better helmets in construction is a no-brainer

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Throughout the U.S., building accounts for one in five workplace deaths and practically half of all fatal falls, slips and trips. Almost 60% of traumatic brain injury deaths on this trade come from falls. Lots of these deaths might have been prevented with higher head safety that stays on the pinnacle throughout a fall and dissipates impression power.

On the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab, we’ve spent years finding out how helmets handle impression power. In sports activities, that work helped drive main design enhancements. Once we utilized the identical strategies to building helmets, we discovered a transparent alternative for progress.

The trade has relied for many years on Kind I helmets, designed to guard in opposition to a tape measure or wrench dropped from above. They use a suspension system to soak up vertical impacts however lack a chin strap and haven’t any padding. Kind II helmets add chin straps and inner padding that may diffuse power throughout impacts.

Our testing confirmed the distinction shouldn’t be refined. In comparison with Kind I helmets, Kind II helmets lowered fall-related concussion threat by 34% and cranium fracture threat by 65% on common. For the highest-performing helmets, these reductions reached 48% and 77%. These numbers imply that many fall-related head accidents and deaths are preventable proper now.

Selecting headgear

So why are Kind I helmets nonetheless the norm on most job websites? Staff typically describe Kind II helmets as hotter or heavier, and corporations cite price. One other issue is the lenient testing customary. Beneath the ANSI/ISEA Z89.1 specification, the U.S. security customary for industrial head safety, there may be little incentive for producers to exceed the minimal efficiency necessities. 

Kind I helmets are examined just for penetration and drive transmission, not for the way nicely they soak up impression power. Kind II helmet certification consists of an energy-attenuation check, however the situation represents a drop of solely about two toes, a far cry from a employee falling from peak. In consequence, even helmets that meet the present customary are licensed below impacts far much less extreme than people who kill employees.

To know what happens in actual falls, we recreated them. Specializing in severe-but-survivable falls from heights of 14 to 25 toes, we examined helmets below impression energies 3 times increased than assessed by the usual. Kind II helmets absorbed considerably extra power, and their chin straps will maintain the helmet in place throughout a fall. Kind I helmets are unlikely to remain on the pinnacle throughout a extreme fall. 

A helmet can solely do its job if it stays between the pinnacle and the impacting floor.

These findings present that the expertise already exists to guard employees from essentially the most severe head accidents. The issue is adoption. Knowledge ought to drive security selections, and the Helmet Lab’s newly launched STAR rankings for building helmets present that information. STAR — brief for Summation of Assessments for the Evaluation of Threat —  identifies which standard-certified helmets provide the simplest power administration below reasonable situations. This must be the start line for the trade.

As producers combine higher-energy testing into their R&D processes and contractors select gear accordingly, the subsequent era of helmets will forestall accidents that immediately are nonetheless thought of inevitable.

Put bluntly, building employees must be sporting Kind II security helmets anytime there’s threat of a fall or a head impression. Making that change will assist forestall debilitating accidents and save lives.