Cell Tower Climbing: Deadliest Job in United States?

These days, most of us have cell phones and rely heavily on them. However, have you ever reflected on the equipment towers that are essential for us to use that wireless communication? Cell tower climbers (or technicians or tower dogs as they are sometimes called) perform installation and repair work on these cellular telephone towers. This occupation might just be the deadliest job in the United States.

In this minuscule corner of the high-tech wireless world, between one and four cell tower employees die each month as America's requirement for the most modern wireless tools runs headfirst into the comparatively low-tech safety utilized by workers climbing hundreds of feet in the air.

The enormous majority of the United States cell tower climbers are employed by low regulated, small mom and pop operations subcontracted by large wireless companies. In spite of various new safety enhancements, the pace of deadly accidents among these approximately 9,800 workers is higher than coal miners, loggers or offshore fishermen.

Ever since the innovation of the cell phone in the early 1980s, wireless companies have blanketed the country with roughly 190,000 cell "sites." But those companies have typically sold their towers to companies that rent space to numerous carriers. Those companies frequently subcontract maintenance. This signifies a self-employed tower worker might be climbing a tower owned by one company, to repair an antenna owned by another, with safety wires installed by another company, or not.

Although most states regulate professions as mundane as a beautician or barber, they require no license to climb a cell phone tower. That generates risk, said Rob Medlock, an official in Cleveland with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration who took on climber safety as a personal project. "There are some good folks with established resources, safety training and they're doing the right thing," Medlock said. "Others think in the short run they can cut corners."

Medlock states that deaths in this business draw less awareness because the workers hardly ever work for big-name cell phone suppliers, which might not be informed of their deaths.

Climbing cell phone towers might be the most dangerous job in the United States depending on whom you believe. According to a recent article in industry trade magazine RCR Wireless, and the leader of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, workers who spend their days climbing up cell phone towers die at more elevated rates than most other workers. Even 'Dateline' has picked up on the contention and produced a special show on the subject. Adding another point of complexity to the claim is the nature of the height at which the work is performed, which means that more injuries lead to death. Other occupations may have much higher serious injury rates, but lower fatality rates. Workers hardly ever survive falls of any height.

Eighteen people died on the job in 2006, and only seven in 2005. Due to the small number of workers in the field, however, these numbers scale to 183.6 deaths for every 100,000 workers in 2006.

The most up to date statistics on workplace fatalities illustrate that deaths rose 2 percent in 2006 to 5,840, the highest level since 2002. The rate of fatal injuries per 100,000 workers remained flat over that period, according to the Department of Labor.

Except for lightning hazards, almost all fatalities come from falling incorrectly clipped into a too-fragile point, did not use safety clips, or gear failing in the midst of a fall.

Deaths due to falls, nonetheless, have been increasing over the past 10 years, attaining a record 827 in 2006, the Labor Department reports. And workplace safety authorities state subjective evidence points to 2008 being a predominantly deadly year, particularly amid high-risk construction and building jobs.

However this year's intense run of cell tower accidents is said to be extraordinary. The following, as recorded by Wireless Estimator, an online resource for the tower industry that tracks tower accidents, is a record of known incidents over a period of six weeks involving a fall from a tower resulting in death:

> April 12th: A 34-year-old cell tower technician from Oklahoma died after falling 150 feet from monopole antenna in Wake Forest, Nor Carolina. It was the nation's first death in 2008 of a communications worker falling from an elevated structure.

> April 14th: A tower worker employed by Cornerstone Tower of Grand Island, Neb., fell to his death in Moorcroft, Wyoming.

> April 15th: A 38-year-old technician finished tightening the bolts on a guyed wireless tower in San Antonio, Texas, "sort of lean[ed] back a little," according to witnesses, and fell 225 feet to his death.

> April 17th: North Carolina suffered its second cell tower fatality in a week when a 46-year-old Chesapeake, Virginia, man fell from a communications antenna in Frisco, NC.

> April 23rd: A Griffin, Georgia, man died from extensive head and chest injuries after falling 100 feet from a communications tower near Natchez, MS. He was reportedly hanging boom gates to a Cell South antenna when he fell.

> May 16th: Jonathan Guilford, who was from Ft. Payne, Alabama, was rappelling down a load line attached to a 200 foot monopole when he stopped abruptly 140 feet up and bounced as if on a bungee cord, disengaging the carabiner that was secured to the tower. This was on an AT&T VMTS (3G) project in Indiana.

The tower fatalities came through continued expansion in the wireless industry, which is in the midst of another phase of infrastructure construction with the infusion into the market of more spectrums for 3G, WiMAX and other wireless services.

At least two of the cell tower climbers killed were working for contractors on the expansion of AT&T's high-speed network data service, known as 3G, that is used by Apple's much-hyped new version of the iPhone introduced June 2008.

So why is this happening and how can the wireless community keep men and women safe who are cell phone tower climbers?

Safety and workplace promoters indicate a host of reasons for the spike in these deaths, including a lack of government oversight, the declining power of unions and, most recently, the slowing economy and increasing fuel prices, which have put a grip on building projects that necessitate hazardous work.

"These things happen in good as well as bad times, but in an economic downturn there's more pressure on people to get more done for less time and less money," says Michael Belzer, associate research scientist with the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations at the University of Michigan.

According to WirelessEstimator.com, an online resource for the tower industry that tracks tower accidents, at least half of this year's fatalities were linked to AT&T Mobility projects. However, it remains unclear whether any association can be drawn between the uptick in tower industry deaths and the current era of 3G network construction.

"The recent spate of accidents must be viewed as an industry-wide cause for concern, both on the carrier and climber levels," said Craig Lekutis, president of WirelessEstimator and a former tower industry manager. "There were too many deaths in too limited a period of time. However, it would be difficult to try to define a trend, such as the rush to deploy 3G based upon seven fatalities."

Lekutis added: "There are a number of data limitations that hinder comparison and analysis, but one thing is clear, the majority of these deadly falls would not have happened if the climber had been tied off 100% of the time. It appears that all of the tower technicians that died had the appropriate personal protection equipment available to them. They just didn't use it properly."

"Tower climbing remains the most dangerous job in America," said Edwin Foulke Jr., head of the Occupational, Safety and Health Administration, in arranged statements for the annual conference of the National Association of Tower Erectors earlier this year in Nashville.

"The majority of fatalities are the result of climbers not being tied off to a safe anchorage point at all times or relying upon faulty personal protection equipment," Foulke stated. "Many fatalities have occurred during the erection, retrofitting or dismantling of a tower. 'Tie or Die!' has become synonymous with the requirement for 100% fall protection."

"OSHA is conducting investigations of the tower deaths that have occurred in federal OSHA states," OSHA stated in a report to RCR Wireless News, adding that offices in Jackson, Miss., and San Antonio were presently investigating the latest tower accidents.

OSHA has joined with NATE to make available training programs to enhance workplace safety and to increase attentiveness among wireless providers, tower companies and general contractors about occupational dangers as well as dealing with them.

"If there's one [death], that's too many," said Patrick Howey, executive director of NATE. "It really comes down to we want to eliminate all fatalities."

Howey said key stakeholders in the tower supply chain - tower owners, cellular carriers and general contractors - have to be alert on safety to improve the status quo. "We would like for them to look at safety as the only way to do the job."

However the group's tough stress on safety may not be enough to diminish the fatality rate of tower climbers. The OSHA-NATE tower safety guidelines are voluntary. Though OSHA has a few construction safety regulations that are applicable to tower climbers, there are no inclusive federal regulations explicit to the tower industry. North Carolina has statewide tower safety rules, and Michigan is contemplating adopting a tower safety standard as well.

David LeGrande, director of occupational safety and health at the Communications Workers of America, said the fatality rate in the tower industry is particularly disturbing in view of the relatively few deaths in the telecom industry in general.

"The only way this can be done [improving tower safety] is by passage of [federal] regulations," said LeGrande. "It's no wonder there are as many fatalities as there are."

It appears that safety has to be the number one issue with regards to the occupation of cell phone climber. Perhaps more stringent regulations should be put in place to ensure that workers follow the tower safety rules. Either way, it is obvious that working on cell phone towers is one of the most dangerous jobs in the United States.

Sources:

Bialik, C. (2008, July 21). Do Cell-Tower Climbers Have the Nation's Deadliest Job? Retrieved October 18, 2008, from The Wall Street Journal: http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/do-cell-tower-climbers-have-the-nations-deadliest-job-381/

Mullins, R. (2007, September 21). America's most lethal job is on cell towers. Retrieved October 18, 2008, from Healthtribune.com: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20070921/NEWS/709210477/1006/SPORTS

Newton, H. (2008, September 24). Cell tower climbers may have the most dangerous job in America. Retrieved October 18, 2008, from JereBeasleyreport.com: http://www.jerebeasleyreport.com/2008/09/cell-tower-climbers-may-have-the-most-dangerous-job-in-america/

Silva, J. (2008, July 9). Tower climbing: deadliest job in U.S. . Retrieved October 18, 2008, from RCR Wireless: http://www.rcrwireless.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080709/FREE/539166731/1098

Tahmincioglu, E. (2008, June 22). Fatalities on the job site worry safety experts. Retrieved October 18, 2008, from MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25214805/