I Can’t Watch This Guy Building Scaffolding on a Skyscraper – IOTW Report

I Can’t Watch This Guy Building Scaffolding on a Skyscraper

Tuesday, 29 May 2018, 18:57 BFH Uncategorized 48

My stomach just told me to turn the damn video off.

48 Comments on I Can’t Watch This Guy Building Scaffolding on a Skyscraper

  3. No, it’s not legal. So?
    American Indians were often hired decades ago for such tasks, due to their zero-vertigo abilities (don’t know how…genetics?).
    Ain’t construction GRAND?!?

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  4. When was the last time one of these guys fell? I’m guessing it was long enough ago nobody remembers, meaning it is a rare event.

    It does give one pause, though, to think that those scaffold frames were bought from the low bidder.

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  9. @ Czar- Mohawks came down from reservations in northern NY next to the border with Canada) to build skyscrapers in Manhattan.

    Defenestration? – you sound like you are ‘in the business’.

    And YES Construction, done right and safely, is GRAND!

    This scaffolding is going up in Kuala Lumpor, Malaysia.

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  13. That’s in Malaysia, so…

    The Mohawks became renowned for their fearlessness of heights. Studies years later showed that they were no different from other people – but since all their compatriots did it and because it paid very well a lot of them did it.

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  14. If David Hogg, Bradley Manning, Hilary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Eric Holder, Valerie Jarrett, Lois Lerner, John Koskinen, James Clapper, James Comey, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, John Brennan, Andrew McCabe, or Rod Rosenstein need something to do…..

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  16. if I had a sawbuck for every scaffold I built, just like that guy (but w/ 2′ cross-platforms instead of that bamboo stuff) I’d be a very rich person
    back in the late ’70’s thru the ’80’s my crew was the one that did the aviation lamping of all the standpipes, water towers, microwave towers, dams, office towers for the utility company I worked for … fun times

    remember … anything 4′ off the ground can kill you dead

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  17. I some times climb radio towers.
    300′ is my record.I climb my 80′
    ham & cb tower when needed.I have a
    Klein professional lineman’s belt with
    2 safty lanyards hooked in 100% of the time.

    8

  19. Fear of heights and dizziness/vertigo when in a high place is something that psychologists have studied for a long time, as far back as the mid-19th century. One of their conclusions is that it is normal to fear heights, but that with repeated exposure you can become accustomed to being in high places without becoming anxious or dizzy. A more interesting conclusion is that it appears that those who do a better job of estimating height are less fearful; conversely those who are especially fearful (acrophobia sufferers) tend to overestimate how high they are off the ground. The most interesting finding, to me at least, is that attachment to a fixed object, especially the ground or a building, tends to increase anxiety/fear compared to not being attached, as we are in an airplane.

    Those Malaysian workers were likely good at estimating heights and knew they were only a few hundred meters up, and so they knew they were in less danger than if they’d been twice as high. (-:

    I’m one of those people who can walk up to the top of a cliff, hang my toes over the edge, and look down without any undue anxiety past knowing that falling would be a Very Bad but Brief Experience and taking reasonable precautions to avoid it. I have my visceral fears (e.g. feeling a bug crawling on my skin when it’s dark) but heights don’t bother me.

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  20. It takes a special person to do that kind of work. My dad’s a retired iron worker and recently recounted two instances where he saw people fall past him from above. Really affected him and he didn’t want to work up high after that. He was already nearly retired at that point. Related; check out the video of the young guy, Alex Honnold, who free-climbed El Capitan in under 4 hours.

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  22. I made it to .35. Normally, I don’t have problems with heights, but this guy was standing on itty bitty pipes. With any slip of the foot, they would separate and he’d go tumbling down … a looong way.

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  24. @ Uncle Al – Does the study ask about HEIGHT. As in one’s physical height? IOW does a lower center of gravity have anything to do with it?

    99% of population can’t do this type of work! Based on fear alone so what is it?

    Mohawk Ironworkers- short vid
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNiNSN_j7yU

    They probably worked on Trump Tower – all those towers…

    #MAGA
    #KAG(edited)

    1

  26. “99% of population can’t do this type of work! Based on fear alone so what is it?”

    99%? … seriously? … a bit high, IMO … I’ve found about 70/75% in the construction/maintenance trade … maybe that’s the difference

    2

  27. Many years ago Life or Look magazines of the time had a photo-journalist doing a story on high-rise construction. One worker was picked to represent all the workers up top by doing photo shoots of him at work. Sadly, he became self-image aware, lost his footing, and fell. Moral up top, don’t get distracted from the job-at-foot.

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  28. @ghost of col j glover – I don’t remember ever seeing anything about the height of the subject (center of gravity). Interesting point, though.

    I think it’s more that 99% of the population WON’T do it. No, that’s not fair. Without some period of desensitization you’re right and they can’t. But all but a few could get to the point where they could work up there if they had enough motivation. All it takes is mental discipline / will-power. Either that or idiocy and/or death wish.

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  29. “All it takes is mental discipline / will-power. Either that or idiocy and/or death wish.”

    as a person who hasn’t had a problem w/ working in height environments, I tend to disagree. I don’t feel I have an overwhelming discipline in willing myself to do tasks at heights, any more than I have a death wish (we can argue the ‘idiocy’ point).
    I believe it’s more of a matter of being in control of your basic motor skills to have confidence in your abilities to perform the task

    btw … 5’11” w/ a center of gravity in the upper body (during the time) … now … cog more to the middle 🙂

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  30. @ ML- all do respect, what percentage of steel workers make up the trades to begin with never mind the populace. I was going to put a higher percentage!

    @ Uncle Al – maybe some type of discipline? How one blocks out fear? By no means a death wish. Living on the ‘edge’ maybe…

    #MAGA
    #KAG

    1

  31. @cg ~ 99.92%? …. lol

    w/ all due respect … steel workers aren’t the only ones that work at heights
    that guy in the video, I don’t believe, is a steel worker … unless you count scaffolding as ‘steel’ (I was primarily an Electrician)

  32. come to think of it … I don’t ever recall anyone that worked in height environments that had a low center of gravity
    just my experience … empirical evidence

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  35. @ ML – I stand corrected! All trades welcome. Power is necessary at some point up there as well…

    I was speaking to, being able to ‘walk the beam’.

    And no, scaffolding is NOT steel erection…more means and methods…

    #MAGA
    #KAG

    2

  37. Looks to be about 300 to 400 hundred feet above ground.
    The “planks” he is walking on are the cross bars, they will not roll, but they will slide. That looks like 3 foot wide scaffolding, the frames he is picking up weight about 40 pounds.
    I have worked on scaffolding 200 feet up but not setting it.
    You watch your step.
    Even more scary is working on 3 and 1/8 inch beams 40 or 50 feet above a concrete slab trying to make the next beam above you set into a column cap.
    No way would I do what they are doing.
    Site is acting up ,must be getting fixed.
    will finish later.

    1

  40. If you want to see scary look up setting scaffolding in Asia using bamboo and raffia as ties, I have seen it set up outside of buildings 400 feet tall.

  41. Oh, one other thing, if you start working on the building from the ground up it makes it easier to work on the building the higher it gets. You get used to it,it just does.
    You don’t want to start at 50 feet,it will freak you out.

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  45. I know I’m not a bird and can’t fly. I get tense standing at the edge of the roof of my one story house. Not for me. But I’m glad people like this exist who can build interesting tall things. And it kind of an interesting contrast to Philippe Petit’s wire walk between the WTC towers.

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  46. @Uncle Al,
    “The most interesting finding, to me at least, is that attachment to a fixed object, especially the ground or a building, tends to increase anxiety/fear compared to not being attached, as we are in an airplane.”

    YES!
    I can fly all day long and plaster my face right into the window like a dog in a car, but if I’m in a building, forget it!

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