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How orthostatic incompetence occurs is that the legs are immobile with a worker in an upright posture. Gravity pulls blood into the lower legs, which have a very large storage capacity. Enough blood eventually accumulates so that return blood flow to the right chamber of the heart is reduced. The heart can only pump the blood available, so the heart’s output begins to fall. The heart speeds up to maintain sufficient blood flow to the brain, but if the blood supply to the heart is restricted enough, beating faster is ineffective, and the body abruptly slows the heart.
In most instances this solves the problem by causing the worker to faint.
After fainting and slumping, blood can now be returned to the heart and the person typically recovers quickly. In a harness, however, the person can’t fall into a horizontal posture, so the reduced heart rate causes the brain’s blood supply to fall below the critical level.