Falls from height

Falling from height is one of the main causes of fatal accidents in agriculture. Many accidents involving falls happen while agricultural buildings or other farm structures are being built or maintained. These jobs typically involve working at height and require some form of temporary access to height; for example, ladders, scaffolds or other temporary working platforms.

Falls frequently occur because no precautions are taken, or any equipment that is used is defective, not appropriate, or is used incorrectly. Often people about to do a job believe it will 'only take a few minutes', and take a risk in the hope that simply being careful will be enough.

The case studies in this section have been grouped into the five main categories of fall from height accidents:

Link URLs in this page

  1. Falls through fragile roofshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture/experience/falls-fragile.htm
  2. Falls through roof lightshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture/experience/falls-rooflight.htm
  3. Falls from open edgeshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture/experience/falls-open-edges.htm
  4. Falls from working platforms on vehicleshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture/experience/falls-platforms.htm
  5. Falls from laddershttps://www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture/experience/falls-ladders.htm
  6. Safe use of ladders and stepladdershttps://www.hse.gov.uk/work-at-height/ladders/index.htm
  7. Safe working with bales in agriculturehttps://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg125.htm
  8. Working on roofshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/construction/safetytopics/roofwork.htm
  9. Falls topichttps://www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture/topics/falls.htm
  10. Work at height - the lawhttps://www.hse.gov.uk/work-at-height/the-law.htm
  11. Free leaflets: falls from heighthttps://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/fallindx.htm
  12. Skin problemshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/skin/index.htm
  13. Work related stresshttps://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/index.htm
  14. Working in GB from overseashttps://www.hse.gov.uk/migrantworkers/index.htm
  15. Treework websitehttps://www.hse.gov.uk/treework/index.htm
  16. Report an incidenthttps://www.hse.gov.uk/riddor/index.htm
  17. Tell us about a health and safety issuehttps://www.hse.gov.uk/contact/tell-us-about-a-health-and-safety-issue.htm

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2024-07-18