It’s time to see what’s been happening in the world of ladders around the globe.  We A cartoon of a ladder in front of a globe.start this month’s review with a focus on ladder thefts and other crimes.  Now that the days are shorter the theft of ladders and incidences of burglaries will start to fall, as there are fewer open windows and less DIY equipment is left outside.  In Blackbird Leys, Oxfordshire, thieves used oil to help them steal a set of ladders from the roof of a van during the night.  Even though the ladders were clamped and locked, thieves managed to make off with the ladders by greasing the equipment and silently stealing them without alerting the sleeping residents nearby.

Ladders and Crime

In Cinnaminson, New Jersey, 21-year-old Andrew Sailor was arrested in connection with the theft of more than 20 ladders.  Sailor was witnessed in the act of taking a ladder from a yard on 16th July and the eagle-eyed neighbour noted down his numberplate.  Police were able to track him down and found him in possession of several stolen ladders.  Meanwhile, Councilman Michael Farley, of Providence, Rhode Island, has appeared in court charged with assault over a ladder.  Farley accused a contractor working on his neighbour’s property of stealing a ladder from him and assaulted him.  Contractor Kevin Schiavone thought the ladder belonged to the client he was working for and it appears that Farley over-reacted to the simple misunderstanding, pleading no contest when he faced the district court.  Farley’s case was turned over to the state police in case of accusations of favouritism by the city police. Close up of a police helicopter.Police in Memphis, Tennessee, were the ones using a ladder when they arrested 28-year-old Edgar Smith who was wanted in connection with a homicide.  Smith had been surrounded by police, with the helicopter overhead and was about to be arrested when he turned and jumped fifteen feet down into a drainage ditch.  The ditch could only be accessed with a ladder, so the fire department called by to lend a hand, and a ladder.  When officers got down into the drainage channel they found Smith and arrested him, getting him back up the ladder and into a waiting patrol car. In Huntington, West Virginia, someone using a ladder taken from the homeowner’s truck burgled his or her house.  The unknown suspect climbed through a second storey window and took ammunition from a bedroom, before ransacking the kitchen and fleeing through the back door.  Burglars don’t always use ladders they find near properties to break in to homes though; a group of would-be robbers in Moulton, Northamptonshire brought a ladder with them to force open a bathroom window.  Upon realising there was someone home they fled empty-handed, but carrying round a ladder and attempting to break in to homes in the middle of the morning (the incident happened around 11am) is pretty audacious.

Latest Ladder Safety News

Ladders are still a leading cause of injury or death, as two men in Bayonne, New Jersey found out when their ladder buckled beneath them.  The man at the top was wearing a safety harness but the other was not, and he fell around twenty feet.  They were climbing the ladder to access the roof, but should not have both been on the ladder at the same time, which is a likely cause of their accident.  One man in Foxboro, Massachusetts fell off a fifteen-foot ladder at his home when the ladder toppled backwards, leaving him with serious injuries that saw him airlifted to hospital. In Lorida, Florida, fifteen-year-old Trace Leadingham helped his friend Gary Albin when he fell badly off a ladder.  Trace had been doing odd jobs for Albin, the owner of a fishing resort, for about a year and was close by while Albin was finishing up a roof repair.  Luckily, Albin’s mother-in-law was standing by the ladder when he fell, and Trace was just around the corner so he went running when he heard the screams.  Albin had landed face down and asked Trace to turn him over.  He had a big cut on his forehead and was bleeding profusely so Trace used a towel and some ice to apply pressure and stop the bleeding until the air ambulance arrived 25 minutes later.  Albin was left with two broken arms, stitches in his head and a fractured thymus, and may require surgery on both elbows, but he is very lucky that quick-thinking Trace was there, as well as his mother-in-law. Brian Pope, of Gretna, Louisiana, is suing his employer after he fell several feet from aA man changing a lightbulb. ladder and fractured his foot while changing a lightbulb.  He claims he had been asked by his employer, Richard Bordelon, to climb the 12 foot ladder but that Bordelon had failed to keep the ladder steady while he was working at the top, causing the ladder to wobble and fall.  His claims are for the loss of wages resulting from the time off needed to recover from the accident.

Ladders Closer to Home

In Caerleon, Wales, a man was taken by ambulance to hospital after falling from a ladder outside an estate agents’ in the High Street.  The man was fixing a window at Robertson and Co and he was taken to the Royal Gwent hospital for treatment.  A roofer in Tunbridge Wells fell from a ladder while working on a job and landed in the garden of the next-door property.  A neighbour called the homeowner’s mother after the paramedics needed to gain access to the property to get the injured man out.  Her daughter was out at work and as there was no side access the paramedics had had to climb over the fence to reach him in the first place.  He was taken out through a window and transported via the waiting air ambulance to King’s College Hospital. A fisherman from Campbelltown, Stornoway, was taken to hospital after falling from a ladder into the hold of his boat, ‘Star of Jura’.  The coastguard were contacted and made their way to the vessel, which was fishing twelve miles off Harris at the time.  The 23-year-old is recovering from serious back injuries in hospital with the support of the Stornoway Fishermens Mission.  In Scratby, Norfolk, a man fell off a ladder whilst holding a drill, causing the drill to make contact with his neck when he fell.  He was taken to James Paget University Hospital for treatment, although his injuries were not said to be life threatening.  It is worth remembering that sometimes the equipment you are using and the items on the ground nearby can be just as dangerous as the ladder A fishing trawler in the middle of the ocean.itself, as we saw a few months ago when a man fell off a ladder in a garden and was impaled on a spike hiding under a bush. In Gosforth, Northumbria, a man working on the Metro line fell from his ladder and, despite paramedic attention, the man was pronounced dead at the scene as a result of the injuries he sustained.  The tracks were closed for some time to allow the emergency services to attend and for the scene to be cleared.   A man working on a college in Bellevue, Washington, was killed after falling from his ladder at work.  He had been working at fourth floor level and fell fifty feet to the ground and killed almost instantly, being pronounced dead by the paramedics who attended the scene first.  In Cochrane, Canada a 51-year-old man died after falling from the roof level while transferring from the ladder to the roof.   He had been working at a friend’s house for several weeks and it is thought that fatigue from the previous weeks of work contributed to the accident.  This is a story worth remembering, as you should never use a ladder when very tired.  The effects on co-ordination, balance and decision-making are similar to those of alcohol so it is not advisable to use ladders in this condition. In Kewanee, Illinois, Curtis English was killed when the ladder he was carrying touched overhead power lines and electrocuted him.  Because the ladder he was carrying was made of aluminium it conducted the electricity straight to him and he was pronounced dead on arrival at the medical centre.  If English had been carrying the ladder horizontally and had paid attention to what was above him this accident could have been avoided. Rory Doherty was killed last year at the age of 33 while he was working up a ladder with his father to remove a notice that had been placed over their company’s sign at the Rosemount Business Park entrance in Dublin.  Mr Doherty fell from the ladder when he stretched too far and the ladder toppled.  He sustained severe head and neck injuries and died in intensive care the day after the accident.  As an organ donor, Mr Doherty’s death became the saviour of five other people whose lives were saved as a result of the much-needed transplant. In part two we will be looking at the actions of our favourite heroes, the fire brigade, what happens when unsecured ladders fall into the road and a couple of bizarre stories from around the world.