PPE: Wear the Gear and Increase Your Odds of a Long Career

When workers are pressed for time, they often opt for the easiest and quickest means of completing a task. That approach frequently boils down to taking shortcuts—and failure to use personal protective equipment (PPE) is a famously dangerous shortcut.

A worker’s failure to use PPE is similar to a police officer’s failure to put on a bulletproof vest before storming the apartment of a criminal known to stockpile deadly weapons. In both cases the consequences can be deadly, even though the “bullets” may be different.

The worker who isn’t wearing a hardhat may be fatally struck by a falling tool or piece of material. The worker who enters a confined space without appropriate respiratory PPE may be unconscious or dead within seconds. And the worker who isn’t using fall arrest equipment can easily back over the edge of a roof and be dead before even fully realizing what is occurring.