Templates / Fall Protection Rescue Plan
Fall Protection Rescue Plan
A template for planning suspension rescue after a fall, covering roles, equipment, and the time-critical steps to reach a suspended worker.
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A planning template for rescuing a suspended worker after a fall.
About this template
The Fall Protection Rescue Plan is designed to be quick to complete and easy to adapt to your own workplace. Start from the template rather than a blank page, tailor the hazards, controls and responsibilities to your site, and keep a completed copy on file as evidence that the right checks were made.
How it links to the standards
The equipment and controls this template asks you to record are governed by published standards that define what each item must withstand and how it is tested. These are the ones that apply most directly:
- EN 361 — full body harnesses
- EN 1497 — rescue harnesses
- EN 341 — descender devices for rescue
- EN 795 — anchor devices
The full EN standards library covers every standard referenced across SafetyOrbit.
Related guidance
Filling the template in is easier when you know the reasoning behind each control. These notes cover the practical detail:
- Roofing and Work at Height — the full technique-note library for this kind of work
- Rescue Planning for a Fall Arrested by a Roof Edge Protection System
- Release and Rescue from a Fall-Arrest System: Building a Retrieval Plan That Works in Minutes
A rescue plan must exist and be available before anyone goes up.
Frequently asked questions
What does the Fall Protection Rescue Plan template cover?
Planning suspension rescue after a fall, covering roles, equipment, and the time-critical steps to reach a suspended worker.
Why is a rescue plan time-critical for a suspended worker?
Prolonged suspension itself carries real medical risk, known as suspension trauma, so a rescue plan needs to reach the person quickly rather than assume they can simply wait for standard emergency response.
What roles need to be assigned in a rescue plan before work at height begins?
Who initiates rescue, who operates the rescue equipment, and who manages communication with emergency services if needed, defined in advance rather than improvised during the incident.
Must this plan exist before anyone works at height with fall-arrest equipment?
Yes, a rescue plan must exist and be available before anyone goes up, not created after a fall has already happened.