Matthew Tucker
Industrial Design Student, Artist — Bethesda, MD
Every day in the USA, a construction worker dies by falling on the jobsite. The predominant fall protection in use today is the fall arrest harness. But workers report that fall arrest harnesses seem unnecessary, hinder work, and require time-consuming training and setup. They can also kill you. After a fall, if its hanging wearer is not rescued rapidly, a fall arrest harness restricts blood flow to vital organs, causing death in as little as thirty minutes. As a result, 38% of workers surveyed never wear harnesses when working over 6’, the mandated height for fall protection, and another 25% wear them “rarely.” The Free Fall harness addresses all of these issues. During normal use, it functions as a standard tool harness with reconfigurable pockets. Meanwhile, an accelerometer tracks movement. If a worker falls, airbags inflate, cushioning the head, back, shoulders, tailbone, chest, and hips, reducing the 1000 G impact that hits a worker landing on concrete to less than 10 G.
