Split on safety harness inspections - do you trust the date or your eyes?

Was on a job at a refinery outside Baton Rouge last month and noticed a harness with a 2024 inspection tag that looked fine on paper. But the webbing had a weird fray near the D-ring that the tag totally missed. I called it out and the foreman argued it was still good for the shift, but I pulled it anyway. How do you guys handle it when the paperwork says one thing but your gut says another?

2 comments

2 Comments

reese55024d ago

I mean, that 'still good for the shift' line is exactly what my buddy Mike heard last year. He was working a tower job near Houston and caught a harness that had a clean 2023 tag but the stitching around the leg loops was literally pulling apart. The foreman told him the same thing, just finish the shift. Mike pulled it anyway and found three more harnesses in the same lot with the same problem. Turns out the inspection company was just stamping tags without actually looking at anything. He ended up getting written up for 'delaying production' but a guy from safety later told him off the record he did the right thing. I'd rather catch hell from a foreman than have to call someone's family.

brians2724d ago

My buddy from a crew up in North Dakota told me about a similar thing last fall, @reese550. They had a whole shipment of Petzl harnesses with 2024 tags but the buckles were starting to corrode weird around the rivets. The safety guy there told everyone to just run them for the week because they had a crew doing a turbine controller swap and couldn't afford downtime. My buddy took photos of the corrosion on his phone and sent them to Petzl directly, and Petzl said those harnesses were from a recalled batch that got mixed up in inventory somewhere. He ended up getting a verbal warning for wasting company time on the phone with Petzl though... funny how that works.