“If anything is hanging and in danger of hitting a pedestrian, I’ll have someone get it with a broom.”

Step aside obesity and cigarette smoking, because the real health hazard might be falling icicles.

Icicles on buildings usually form when the heat of a building melts snow into water which in turn refreezes into ice. Icicles will grow until they are knocked down by wind or other forces, turning them into cataclysmic death spears.

Imagine an icicle falling on you from your second story gutter. A bit uncomfortable.

Now imagine 200 pounds of ice falling from a 60-story skyscraper. That’s more like severe, life-threatening, hospital-stay pain.

In 2004, Discovery Channel’s “MythBusters” proved that falling icicles really can kill people, piercing a thick piece of meat with a plummeting icicle.

“In 2000, Donald Booth, a Wisconsin man, was walking down the sidewalk past the Neiman Marcus building (in Chicago) when a microwave-size piece of ice fell from the sky, crushing his skull and vertebrae and instantly killing him,” reported Rachelle Bowden for Chicagoist.com.

Most buildings will post “Caution, Falling Ice” signs on the sidewalks outside of buildings, but that can only do so much. If a piece of ice falls from a tall building on a windy day, the shrapnel can float hundreds of feet away from the building.

Many new skyscrapers have built-in features to combat the threat of falling ice. The U.S. Bank building, Wisconsin’s tallest skyscraper, uses a glycol system to melt the ice. Inside the metal framework of the building are hot water pipes that heat the metal and melt snow and ice that might accumulate.

“It’s not a problem for us here,” said Aaron Sky, a maintenance person for the U.S. Bank Center. “Just in case, we rope off the walkway (against the side of the building).”

The Wells Fargo building uses a similar method. Staff there heat the slanted roof of the skyscraper, which would usually be conducive to icicle formation, said Manuel Rivas, a security person in the building.

“When we get accumulation we’ll put out signs on the Wisconsin Avenue and Water Street sides of the building,” Rivas said.

Icicle formation usually happens on older buildings that don’t have newer technology. Many icicle-related injuries have been reported in Europe, where buildings are hundreds of years old.

Although there haven’t been any serious injuries from falling icicles, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee does not have a consistent plan for battling icicle formation.

“If anything is hanging and in danger of hitting a pedestrian, I’ll have someone get it with a broom,” said Steve Ellison, custodial supervisor at the UWM Union.

At the Engineering and Mathematical Sciences building, one of UWM’s tallest buildings, there is no protocol for the hazard.

“We don’t do anything that I know of,” said Greg, a custodian at the Engineering & Mathematical Sciences building.

During the frigid Milwaukee months, be on the lookout, because every step you take could be your last.

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