Re: Werner FS106 6' Fiberglass Ladder Failure

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On 2/01/14, Jerry Heilman wrote:
> On January 26th, 2013, I was at my new house painting up
> inside one of the skylight tunnels in the dinning room. My
> wife was right next to me so that she could hand me paint
> filled rollers and what ever else I might need while working
> in the confined space.
>
> I was using a 6' Werner FS106 fiberglass ladder, rated for
> 250 lbs, that was maybe a year old and is always stored in
> my shop. I was on the fourth rung from the bottom. Due to
> the confined area I was working in, there was no way
> possible to be leaning hardly at all in any direction, so I
> was centered over the ladder.
>
> In a nut shell, all of a sudden the ladder dropped out from
> under me and I fell out of the skylight tunnel and landed on
> my right scapula on the hardwood floor. I ended up in the
> emergency room with a small pneumothorax injury and spent
> two days in the critical care center.
>
> I went over to the house yesterday to look at everything.
> Nothing has been moved since the accident and I am going
> over today to get some photos. The right side rail was bent
> in directly below the bottom rung about 45 degrees towards
> the center of the ladder. The lateral support for the
> bottom rung looks like it pushed up the bottom rung a good
> 3" in the middle. None of the fiberglass parts are torn
> looking and I can not see any threads from fiberglass
> tearing. Both side webs of the C channel side rail are
> mushroomed outwards a lot. On the left hand side rail, you
> can see a similar, but small, amount of deformation.
>
> I have done some searching on the CPSC web site and with
> Google and have found very little in the way of similar
> accidents reported. This web site seems to be one of the
> only places with similar incidents reported.
>
> So, my question is, has anyone else had any similar
> experience with Werner fiberglass ladders?

I had a similar experience in january of this year. identical
ladder, exact issue and i broke my right leg in multiple places.