Working with an Ostomy: Safety Harness Concerns

Hello All,



Does anyone out there have a job that requires a safety harness? I am contemplating becoming a wind turbine technician, the job requires the ok from a doctor. Am I wasting my time?



Any info would be helpful.



Thanks,



John

John,



I rock climb and vertical cave and I think in general you'll be OK.  However, here are some tips.  You gotta be careful on how the harness interacts with your stoma...if its rubbing on it all day long, it might cause trauma, bleeding etc.  A lot of industrial harnesses are pretty adjustable, so you'd want to try adjusting them.  Alternatively try buying your own harness so you don't have to mess with crapy work harnesses.  There are a lot of brands out there.  Check out petzle, they have a whole line of industrial gear that is pretty good.  Even if you don't have to wear a full body harness I'd focus on those for a number of reasons.  One is it probably clears the stoma better and two if you fall it moves the site of all the action to your upper body, not where the stoma is.  I was rock climbing and took tension on the rope and the harness kinda grabbed my bag and pulled it right off.  Pretty tricky situation 100 ft up in the air.  Which brings me to my third point, wear a "compression" type shirt like under armour that will keep your bag in close to you and not flapping around in the breeze where it can get caught up in your harness.



Is there a place to train for that?  I've thought a lot about it but never found a good training option.



Good luck!



Ed

Hi John,



John I was an erection technician working on wind turbines for nine months, I had no problem at all with the harness buddy but the problem for me was needing to empty whilst working for 4 or 5 hours at the top of a turbine, no toilets up there dude. Apart from that I found myself having to crawl through the tight spaces inside the turbine and on one occasion my bag became detatched, at that point I had to go down, sit in the back of my van and put on a new one. Shortly after an asshole of a supervisor with no understanding of bags etc decided my contract was up. If John you have an understanding employer that knows the score then I would say go for it, its a great job.



Good luck, hope my comments help



Paul