My god you have got to have balls of steel to do this job. This guy is climbing at the top of this tower with no safety equipment or anything. It makes my palms sweat just watching the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txdv_oNq81I

9/15/2010 11:56:12 AM

someone needs to start a reddit repost thread

9/15/2010 12:02:36 PM

omg omg omg omg omg

FTS

9/15/2010 12:15:48 PM

for the record... if he's climbing that tower without safety equipment, he can get in serious trouble and cost the owner of said tower a shitload of money in fines.

[Edited on September 15, 2010 at 12:18 PM. Reason : equipment not inspection ]

9/15/2010 12:17:58 PM

just watching ten seconds of that dude at the top of the tower made me want to hurl

9/15/2010 12:20:00 PM

^^OSHA allows it under certain conditions

they even stated that in the video

[Edited on September 15, 2010 at 12:20 PM. Reason : ]

9/15/2010 12:20:14 PM

a know a ton of linemen that prefer to freeclimb. They say that when climbing wood poles, they would rather fall to the ground than risk sliding down the pole and getting splinters embedded all over their body. I would probably do the same thing.

The real balls of steel belong to the workers that erect these towers in the first place. these things sway around like crazy before they get the guy wires attached and tensioned.

9/15/2010 12:27:21 PM

i know a guy that climbs towers ... dont know if he climbs ones that tall though

9/15/2010 12:33:08 PM

I know a guy whose brother did this job.

His brother died a few years ago, while working.

[Edited on September 15, 2010 at 12:36 PM. Reason : .]

9/15/2010 12:35:54 PM

did he fall or what?

9/15/2010 12:38:56 PM

I didn't have sound on in the video

I'm going by what happened at Eric's work... an inspector happened to come out the day some technicians were doing this, and not only did they get slapped with a fine but they lost a ton of money because the owner of said tower told them they were a liability at that point

9/15/2010 12:41:05 PM

Crazy. Glad someone is willing to do this.

I wonder if my forearms are that big. I think I'm going to go climb something to find out how they look when they're all pumped up.

9/15/2010 12:43:16 PM

How the fuck do they build these things?

9/15/2010 1:28:07 PM

I watched the video. He and his climbing partner have plenty of safety equipment.

9/15/2010 1:55:00 PM

i could probably climb up easy, but it would be impossible for me to climb down

9/15/2010 2:02:49 PM

I've flown within a few hundred feet of the tops of those in cessnas. I get chills thinking about sitting up there.

9/15/2010 2:08:27 PM

It wouldn't be so bad if they wore parachutes. If they slip, they'd still be relatively ok

9/15/2010 2:09:20 PM

He keeps mentioning there's no fast way down; I disagree.

And at that point safety equipment should include a parachute.

9/15/2010 2:10:00 PM

Parachutes are pretty damn heavy to be lugging that far up.

9/15/2010 2:15:38 PM

^Yeah but when it comes to your life that's just about the only thing that could save you if you did lose your grip. I'd think they could just leave a toolbox up there for whoever needs to work on it, then they could just carry a parachute on their back instead of lugging that toolbox up there. Also, I wonder what happens if they accidentally drop a screwdriver or something... that would obviously kill anyone who it landed on or could seriously damage a car or something.

And as it mentioned in the video about "no fast way down"... wtf do you do if a storm rolls in really quickly. Obviously rain is gonna make it a lot more slippery and you would essentially be on top of a giant lightning rod. And fuck the winter, you know that shit is gonna have ice particles all over it when it gets cold.

[Edited on September 15, 2010 at 2:57 PM. Reason : ]

9/15/2010 2:55:52 PM

pansies!

9/15/2010 5:04:23 PM

^you work on these things? I'll give you $40 to let me climb one with you.

9/15/2010 5:12:18 PM

^^The cage part wouldn't be as scary in my opinion. At least in that case if you start to fall, you can grab on to something. The worst part of that video is when he's up at the top and it's just a small pole with rungs going out of the center and that's it. Even the part that he clips on to "take a rest" is just kinda dangling loosely.

9/15/2010 5:22:01 PM

you could also get really fucked up by that cage.

9/15/2010 5:37:49 PM

I'd rather fall clear of the structure than be beaten against the side of that cage for 500 feet.

9/15/2010 5:40:45 PM

General contractors will generally allow their employees to free climb. I'm a tower engineer and my company will not.
Most deaths occur when a construction worker drops a tool and then suddenly reaches for it and then falls to the ground. Most falls above 60' are fatal.

Quote :

"you work on these things? I'll give you $40 to let me climb one with you."

How about $100? and you have to climb at least 300' your first time

9/15/2010 5:41:11 PM

my hands get sweaty just looking at it

9/15/2010 5:42:51 PM

^ what company?

esstover's company will fire people over that stuff

oh and whoever mentioned it before, I, too, don't think it's enough equipment

9/15/2010 5:43:31 PM

I did smokestack testing for a few months between jobs as it pays well and there's plenty of work. While it's not 1700 feet up, I did have a few instances where I had to climb a similar ladder 200 feet and was 400-500 feet in the air (damn old power plants). The tallest one didn't have a cage to rest against, we had to have the harness with the braking system to prevent a fall, but the thing at times is just as bad as it kills your back when you're tall as you have to have it at a certain angle to go up. So while not nearly as bad as a cell phone/radio tower, it's still an experience most wouldn't do. Thankfully we set up a winch to send things from the top of the stack to the bottom as I can't imagine a tool box dangling below me.

9/15/2010 5:47:08 PM

I'll do it for $100

9/15/2010 5:50:09 PM

^^did you do that in NC?

9/15/2010 5:56:36 PM

I didn't do it in NC, I did it in Indiana sadly. Night shift in Indianapolis in the winter is cold as shit, ice forms on the ladder which isn't a great thing for comfort. Another site I did it at had a large Amish population and a night we went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant they were there with horse and buggy, something I'll never forget for sure.

9/15/2010 6:01:02 PM

but in the video he only has to climb the last ~100ft .
An elevator takes him us the first 1600ft.

9/15/2010 6:04:04 PM

i've been saying i'm gonna try to get the guys to let me climb with them when they come to do our stack inspections. all the ladders have the cages and we're required to do 100% tie off if we're not on a caged ladder anyway.

9/15/2010 6:05:00 PM

That's not too shocking that they don't want you up there. After the initial things were set up, we tried keeping the plant workers away from it, as any wrong step would make you have to start an 8 hour run over. Where do you work?

9/15/2010 6:10:27 PM

This place used to be off limits, man, 'cause some drunk freshman fell off. He went right down the middle, smacking his head on every beam, man. I hear it doesn't hurt after the first couple though. Autopsy said he had one beer, how many did you have?

9/15/2010 8:03:32 PM

Four

9/15/2010 8:05:06 PM

You're dead, man, you're so dead. Look at the blood stains right there.

9/15/2010 8:05:52 PM

The barrel-monster kid climbed all the good ones around raleigh. I've got the photos around here somewhere. He made it about 1/3 way up the giant TV towers in clayton before he gave up I think.

9/15/2010 8:12:12 PM

video is down, but i know a guy that used to be a tower technician. he was tied off but somehow fell about 30' before slamming into the side of the tower. It busted is arm up pretty bad, but he lived to tell the tale. He was from Pakistan and I think he said he was working in Saudi Arabia at the time of his accident.

/csb

9/15/2010 8:20:05 PM

Vid is down, but I saw something similar on home on a giant HD tv. Holy crap, that shit is wild.

This is another one that makes me shiver whenever he points the camera over the edge:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWVLzVhnYE0

9/15/2010 10:33:53 PM

Quote :

"I'm going by what happened at Eric's work... an inspector happened to come out the day some technicians were doing this, and not only did they get slapped with a fine but they lost a ton of money because the owner of said tower told them they were a liability at that point"

I don't recall us getting a fine, but we did lose a lot of work-in-progress.

We have agreements with certain companies and a lot of it is safety-based, aka "Thou shalt not free-climb." and we had a few idiots doing just that.


100% tie-off is extra important. Otherwise, one slip and you're done...

9/15/2010 11:23:52 PM

Fatal bandwidth: 6 cell tower deaths in 5 weeks
May 28, 2008

Quote :

"There's a price to pay for the wireless networks we take for granted."

Quote :

"Then in April, as Wireless Estimator president Craig Lekutis notes with alarm, five workers fell to their death from mobile phone towers in the space of 12 days. Guilford's death in May was the sixth this year. Accidents like this often come in spurts, says Lekutis, an industry veteran with 27 years experience. There were 10 fatal falls from elevated structures of all kinds (including TV, electrical and water towers) in 2007, and a record 18 in 2006. But this year's concentrated run of cell tower accidents, he says, was extraordinary."

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2008/05/28/fatal-bandwidth-6-cell-tower-deaths-in-5-weeks/

9/16/2010 6:54:12 AM

Quote :

"How about $100? and you have to climb at least 300' your first time "

when and where? I'm up for it.

9/16/2010 7:34:06 AM

I'm glad hooksaw dug up a two year-old story to prove to everyone how dangerous this job is

Really insightful

9/16/2010 7:40:16 AM

Quote :

"This video is no longer available due to jerks at TheOnLineEngineer.org"

Found it here... for now.
http://www.artifacting.com/blog/2010/09/15/climbing-a-1768-foot-transmission-tower/

And it sure would suck if that bag of tools got hung up on something.

[Edited on September 16, 2010 at 7:43 AM. Reason : -]

9/16/2010 7:41:34 AM

^^ Thanks.

9/16/2010 7:49:33 AM

Quote :

"Wireless Estimator president Craig Lekutis"

9/16/2010 8:50:11 AM

Best last name ever!

9/16/2010 9:08:10 AM

eleusis is pretty dumb itt

9/16/2010 10:12:45 AM