Safety Harness

A safety harness is a piece of protective equipment, typically made from webbing, rope, or wire cable and worn around the body, that forms the core component of a fall arrest system, anchoring the wearer to a fixed point through a locking device and often a shock-absorbing lanyard that limits the deceleration force when a fall is arrested. Before full-body harnesses became standard, workers commonly wore a simple body belt around the waist, which concentrated the force of a fall on the abdomen and caused serious injury; regulatory mandates requiring full-body harnesses in place of body belts substantially reduced fall-related injuries and deaths in workplaces such as construction sites, electrical line work, maritime operations, and aerial stunt work, and modern harnesses are built to standards such as ANSI Z359.1 in the United States and CSA Z259.10 in Canada. A safety harness is a distinct piece of equipment from the climbing harness used in rock climbing and mountaineering, even though the two share some design features. No single clean origin date or inventor is established in the source consulted.