A Father and Son's Climbs and Falls

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13547960.post-53741229900542549182008-07-10T16:39:00.000-07:002008-07-10T16:50:16.672-07:00A Father and Son's Climbs and Falls<a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_fUeX-2J-ldU/SHaehR6Z4KI/AAAAAAAAAAs/PysFZUaXlOI/s1600-h/J+Barnes+mug.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5221535112563908770" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_fUeX-2J-ldU/SHaehR6Z4KI/AAAAAAAAAAs/PysFZUaXlOI/s200/J+Barnes+mug.jpg" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_fUeX-2J-ldU/SHaehvxkD9I/AAAAAAAAAA0/d2ZvnnkWx2w/s1600-h/H+Barnes+mug.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5221535120579891154" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_fUeX-2J-ldU/SHaehvxkD9I/AAAAAAAAAA0/d2ZvnnkWx2w/s200/H+Barnes+mug.jpg" border="0" /></a> <div>Growing up in Bellevue Borough, outside Pittsburgh, I would go with friends to climb the superstructure of Jack’s Run Bridge. The bridge traverses a ravine between Bellevue and Brighton Heights, and the deck of the structure is 150 ft tall and unsafe to climb. We’d climb to the top of the structure beneath the roadway and drink beer and race each other down the bridge, shimmying around the piers and sprinting the ramps between them. We acted as if we were fearless. I grew up working in landscaping and construction. I’d climb a tree, or scale a ladder, and it was no big deal. When I was 17, though, I got into a brawl in the North Side of Pittsburgh and was pushed down some outside cellar stairs. Trying to catch myself, I stuck my left arm though the window in the cellar door, severing the artery and causing me to nearly bleed to death. Ever since, I’ve had a healthy fear of falling and it’s been reinforced by more recent tragedies. Nineteen years ago, my neighbor Doug, a guy who was all shoulders and arms and a favorite of the girls, was working for a contractor when he fell through an opening in a roof deck for a skylight. The fall permanently disabled him, at 25, and he now lives in a wheelchair and has the mind of a child. That summer I was working for a company at a suburban airport, replacing the roofs of airplane hangars. Before we scaled the first roof, our foreman said: “Walk where the nails are. That’s where the trusses are.” There was no plywood decking on the hangar roofs, and the only things keeping us from falling to the concrete floor below were the prefabricated trusses. The roof deck we were replacing was a thin layer of corrugated material, rigid tarpaper a few sheets thick. The heat and the realization that I could become crippled, like Doug, got to me. I was hesitant up there--not cocky, like some of the guys. After a while, they relieved me by having me carry sheets of plywood and push them up ladders to the guys on the roof. When I write about contractors fined for fall safety violations, I think of workers who made an avoidable mistake, like Doug. Why doesn’t the fear of falling and dying stop contractors and workers from getting too comfortable on dangerous jobs? The answer is simple: They aren't afraid because tragedy hasn't struck them or someone they’ve known, and if it has, it was so long ago they don’t remember. I've had some unforgettable trouble from falls, even after my brawling days. Sixteen years ago, I was working as a laborer, building a home. The company’s owner was flipping out one day, screaming for a saw, and I scrambled over with the saw. I stepped onto the corner of a piece of plywood we’d placed over the floor joists and the plywood slipped from under me, sending me down through the joists. I caught myself between two joists, saving myself from hitting the garage floor. My left side got the brunt of the fall, landing hard on a joist. That was a painful close call. But the toughest fall involved my family, before I began covering accidents for ENR. My dad, Harvey Lea Barnes, had been a civil engineer for U.S. Steel and American Bridge. He’d worked in steel mills across America, and on projects in Europe, Asia and Africa. Once he sent me a postcard from Mt. Kilamanjaro saying: “Some day you’ll climb mountains higher than this.” But his accident happened at home. Eleven years ago, he was on a ladder scraping paint from the woodwork on the porch and fell onto the driveway below, hitting his head. He made his way to the basement, where my brother Pete later found him lying on the floor. He was rushed to the hospital, his survival in doubt. He had a miraculous recovery, and came home, but the old square-shouldered commanding presence and booming voice (needed to focus the attention of his dozen children) were gone. He still had a wonderful vocabulary, but he was somewhat retarded. Several months later, he fell again at home, breaking his hip. That hospital stay was his last; he died several weeks later. If he’d not fallen, Harve would’ve congratulated me on writing for ENR. “You have a natural inclination for engineering,” he would’ve said. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Jonathan Barnes is Engineering News Record’s Pittsburgh correspondent. This story was published in <a href="http://www.enr.com/">ENR</a>.</div>Jonathan Barneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04803892508439460068noreply@blogger.com