Lifting a person with a crane is treated differently from lifting a load, and for obvious reasons. A dropped load is a loss. A dropped person is a fatality and a Section 24 investigation. South African law does not prohibit the practice, but it sets specific conditions, and improvised arrangements fail every one of them.
What the Regulation Actually Says
Three conditions apply together, and all three must be met.
A man cage designed and manufactured to an approved SANS standard. Not a fabricated box, not a modified skip, not a platform welded up in the workshop on a Friday afternoon. The cage must be designed and built to the applicable standard.
Approved for that purpose by an inspector. The cage must be approved for use with the machine that will lift it.
A risk assessment must have been done. The assessment is part of the legal requirement, not a paperwork exercise added afterwards.
Miss any one of the three and the lift is unlawful, whatever else has been done correctly.
Why the Cage Alone Is Not Enough
A compliant man cage or personnel lifting platform is necessary but not sufficient. The machine lifting it matters just as much.
The crane or hoist must be suitable and rated for personnel lifting duty, and its own compliance must be current. Under Driven Machinery Regulation 18, a lifting machine must be thoroughly examined and performance tested by a lifting machinery inspector before it is put into use, again every time it is dismantled and re-erected, and thereafter at intervals not exceeding 12 months.
Controls, limit switches and brakes carry more weight in a personnel lift than in a materials lift. So does the operator, who should be lifting people only under a documented procedure with a defined means of communication with the occupants of the cage.
The Question to Ask First
Before specifying a man cage, ask whether the crane is the right machine at all.
A man cage suspended from a crane is appropriate where there is genuinely no safer alternative: access inside a structure, over an obstruction, or in a position no other equipment can reach. Where a mobile elevating work platform, scaffold or fixed access ladder and walkway can do the job, that is the safer hierarchy of control and the risk assessment will usually say so.
This matters commercially as well as legally. Sites that default to a man cage for routine access often find that a permanent access solution costs less over two years than the procedure, the assessments and the downtime around every lift.
Specifying a Man Cage
Once the risk assessment supports the lift, the specification needs to cover more than the box.
| Consideration | What to confirm |
|---|---|
| Rated capacity | Number of occupants plus tools and materials, with the cage’s own mass accounted for at the hook |
| Design standard | Designed and manufactured to the applicable approved SANS standard |
| Approval | Approved for the purpose, and matched to the specific lifting machine |
| Fall protection | Anchor points for harnesses where the assessment requires them |
| Access | Self-closing gate, no outward-opening arrangements over a drop |
| Attachment | Correct rated shackles and slings, with the below-hook mass included in the crane’s load |
| Communication | Defined means of contact between occupants and the operator |
| Certification | Current load test and examination records for the cage and the machine |
Load Testing and Records
The cage and the lifting machine both sit inside the same compliance regime as the rest of your lifting equipment.
The machine requires thorough examination and performance testing at intervals not exceeding 12 months, and again after any dismantling and re-erection. Any shackles or slings used to attach the cage are lifting tackle, and lifting tackle in use must be examined at intervals not exceeding three months by a competent person appointed in writing.
Records are kept in a register on the premises, showing full particulars of every performance test, examination, modification and repair, available to an inspector on request. After an incident, the register is the first thing requested and the hardest thing to reconstruct.
Load testing and certification by qualified lifting machinery inspectors keeps this current, and a managed testing schedule removes the risk of a certificate quietly expiring.
Before the Lift
Complete and record the risk assessment. It is a legal precondition, not a formality.
Confirm the cage is compliant and approved for the machine that will lift it.
Check both certificates. The machine’s examination and performance test, and the tackle examination for the shackles and slings in use.
Brief the operator and the occupants, including the communication method and the abort procedure.
Never leave a suspended person unattended, and never use the arrangement for routine access that a proper access solution should cover.
Lifting personnel on your site?
JGS Lifting manufactures and supplies man cages and personnel lifting platforms, and carries out the load testing and certification that both the cage and the lifting machine require. If you are not certain whether your current arrangement meets Driven Machinery Regulation 18.8, that is worth establishing before the next lift rather than after an incident.
Discuss a compliant personnel lifting solution
Office 011 363 0287 | Breakdowns 073 511 1363 | 24/7 line 064 543 5276 | 16 4th Avenue, Nigel, 1490
