Anyone else scared of heights?

Bailey28 said:
My neighbor and I decided to rent a 30' compact lift to trim the trees on our properties. The kind you see people painting the sides of buildings with, fixing lights in a parking lot etc. This thing tows behind a truck and has four outriggers that stabilize it. The rickety open sided aluminum bucket will fit two adults into it.

We set it up and I am all ready to go up in the bucket about 20' into the air near the first tree limb. I start raising it up and I look down. I start sweating and not liking what's happening. I am trying to convince myself....'what the heck, this lift isn't going anywhere', so I go up higher. Seems I need to go even higher to get to the limb. The lift stops and I looked down again. I can barely move. My neighbor figures out I am not loving life and is now laughing because he knows. I know he knows, because I am terrified at this point.

I am in the bucket, the thing is wobbling and shaking in the breeze. I cannot for the life of me lift the saw up to trim the limb off.
I lower the bucket and he asks what is it, what happened?

I was like 'nope..... this ain't for me' as I am bee lining for the solid ground.... He gets in and goes up like its nothing, trimming limbs like an acrobat at the circus....
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We had a 50 foot towable lift at my workplace to collect tree seed (recently sold - money pit). Gave me the heevy jeevies above 35 feet or so.

Similar to forklifts, OHSA/ANSI heavily regulates aerial lift maintenance and use safety due to numerous (30) annual deaths . They require multiple annual inspections and users are required to have machine AND fall safety training.

I'm curious, were you trained in fall safety (harness/lanyard) in addition to the machine safety? One of the most common accidents is a boom "bounce" for any number of reasons and the person is catapulted out of the bucket. Glad you had a safe outcome.
 
doitmyself said:
We had a 50 foot towable lift at my workplace to collect tree seed (recently sold - money pit). Gave me the heevy jeevies above 35 feet or so.

Similar to forklifts, OHSA/ANSI heavily regulates aerial lift maintenance and use safety due to numerous (30) annual deaths . They require multiple annual inspections and users are required to have machine AND fall safety training.

I'm curious, were you trained in fall safety (harness/lanyard) in addition to the machine safety? One of the most common accidents is a boom "bounce" for any number of reasons and the person is catapulted out of the bucket. Glad you had a safe outcome.
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Safety training? LOL> my neighbor brought the lift back with his truck at 9am... There was a learning curve to figure out how to work all of the buttons to get the thing to even work. Neighbor said the rental place ran through the lift in less than 5 minutes crash course and he forgot all of it on the way home. This is the exact model lift we rented.

Safety harness?? LOL again....
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None was mentioned, and none were available that I could see in the bucket or anywhere else on the machine. Bounce? The machine had a speed control on each movement and seemed to have a soft start and stop to each movement. It was never jerky. I did ram him up into a few limbs on accident early on though!
 
As someone who made a living doing pro AV I found myself higher off the ground that I would like may times.
For the most part heights don't bother me however now as I age I have a bad ankle that I can't trust not to fail me when I'm in a attic standing on a few 2x6's 65' from the floor in a Church.

Its not i'm scared but I have gone down in the front yard pushing a lawn mower. I can't trust my ankle anymore so I seldom will do attic or roof work. I now hire someone younger...
 
Being up on a roof, or high upon a ladder, scares the crap out of me. I do acclimate to it quickly though. We had a tree overhanging our house and I was too cheap to hire a pro, so I took it down bit by bit, and the branches overhanging the 2nd story roof required me to be within a few feet of the side of the house, and I was practically paralyzed with fear the first couple times. By the middle of the 2nd day of cutting branches, I was standing right on the edge of the roof making cuts and it didnt bother me in the least. Three months later, putting up Christmas lights, I was terrified all over again, so I de-un-acclimated to it pretty quickly.

Airplanes, skyscrapers, driving the million dollar highway and looking down over the ledge while driving.... none of that bothers me at all. I'm a roller coaster junkie and they couldnt make one high enough to scare me. Back in my teens and 20's I used to dangle my feet out of an open door Cessna at 12,500 feet before jumping out and loved every minute of it. But climbing 15 feet up a ladder gives me horrible heebie jeebies, and it did back then too.

At my first airline job, I was in a full harness, suspended from a 10 ton ceiling hoist from above, and had to walk the top of a DC-9 fuselage from the cockpit all the way to the vertical stab.... I put on a brave face but even in full safety gear with near zero chance of falling, I was terrified, and that was maybe 20 feet up if that.
 
wander2039 said:
Ran into this the other day measuring our roof.. just not used to it anymore. Think we'll put a metal roof on our house not looking forward to it! But don't want to pay the extra for labor.
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I had a metal roof installed and love it, However once the metal roof goes on it turns the roof into one big metal sliding board so I can't now get back on my roof and only the brave of the brave contractors will as I have a high pitch roof . Things like replacing loose siding or painting a window is now something I can't do and my handyman also won't brave that new slick as glass roof...
 
I have a healthy respect for heights as I’m a retired firefighter lol. I help clean my neighbors gutters after the leaves fall and they all say to be careful and I always joke that it’s not too bad as the roof isn’t covered in ice and the house isn’t on fire.
Our department had a 125’ straight stick ladder truck and a 100’ tower truck with a nice bucket on it.
One of the last fires I had before retiring was a high rise fire on the ninth floor where I had to open the window with an axe and crawl out of the bucket into the apartment with a hose line. I still miss it even after ten years gone.

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Not really, as long as its safe enough. Done plenty of electrical work on a boom lift, working on tall building roofs, skydiving, hiking grand canyon etc. I am still scared of a wobbly ladder though. I think that's different.
 
Bailey28 said:
Safety training? LOL> my neighbor brought the lift back with his truck at 9am... There was a learning curve to figure out how to work all of the buttons to get the thing to even work. Neighbor said the rental place ran through the lift in less than 5 minutes crash course and he forgot all of it on the way home. This is the exact model lift we rented.

Safety harness?? LOL again.... View attachment 328082None was mentioned, and none were available that I could see in the bucket or anywhere else on the machine. Bounce? The machine had a speed control on each movement and seemed to have a soft start and stop to each movement. It was never jerky. I did ram him up into a few limbs on accident early on though!
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We rented one of these when we replaced the upstairs windows. They definitely don’t like the least bit of wind.
 
I was terrified of heights up until my mid 20's. When I landed my career job, it involved sometimes working at heights in factory high bays , cat walks , on top of tall buildings , JLG's , sissor lifts and ladder work. I had to face my fears if I wanted the job. I learned to respect heights , take all precautions and use all applicable safety equipment . The fear of heights soon went away and it never bothered me anymore. Being retired, I don't have to deal with it anymore.
 
When I was younger, heights never bothered me. In my teens I climbed cliffs and even went through jump school at Fort Benning in 1971. After the Army I became a firefighter, so rappelling down ropes felt natural.

That changed at one point. While fixing a tile on my roof, the ladder slipped and I had to drop about five feet onto the sidewalk. I landed on my feet, but the jolt ran from my feet to my head. That was the moment I realized my elasticity was gone and age had caught up with me. Now I’m older and much more cautious. Even changing a light bulb makes me think twice. 🪜
 
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