They tend to happen more on Mondays. They can occur in an instant. And trench deaths kill about 25 workers a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). About 75 percent of those deaths are due to cave-ins, which are largely preventable through cave-in protection and soil analysis. The remainder are mainly caused by struck-bys or electrocutions – also largely preventable.
An effort currently underway - timed to coincide with Construction Safety Week - is aimed at preventing fatalities and injuries from dropped objects.
Through its 2019 Safety at Heights campaign, the International Safety Equipment Association (ISEA) The campaign is providing employers and workers educational information at SafetyAtHeights.org.
A fall from the fourth floor of a building under construction claimed the life of a 24-year-old worker last month. News sources say Alexander J. Kanouse fell at approximately 8 a.m. while working at a jobsite in Madison. When first responders arrived, Kanouse was barely breathing and was bleeding profusely from a head wound.
OSHA and its partners are hosting events throughout the country this week for the sixth annual National Safety Stand-Down to Prevent Falls in Construction. Employers and workers will pause to talk about fall hazards, OSHA compliance, and industry best practices to prevent falls. The 2019 poster is available on OSHA's publications page.
The body of a third worker was recovered yesterday from the rubble of the Illinois silicone factory that exploded and erupted into flames late Friday. The search for the fourth body believed to still be in the debris that was the AB Specialty Silicones factory in Waukegan will resume today.
A 24-year-old worker was killed at work last week when hundreds of pounds of plate glass fell on him, crushing him.
News reports say Damarcus Laquan Calloway, an employee of Virginia Glass Products in Ridgeway, North Carolina, died April 22 from traumatic injuries.
Being fired for refusing to safety glasses was apparently what set in motion a deadly rampage at a suburban Chicago manufacturing facility in February. Before it was over, the company’s human resources manager who’d done the firing was dead, along with four other employees and the gunman. Six police offers were injured in the incident.
An employee at a Pennsylvania food processing plant was killed on the job Tuesday after falling into an industrial-size meat grinder machine.
Jill Greninger, 35, was reportedly standing on stairs next to the grinder when she "tragically either fell or was drawn into the machine resulting in her death," according to a statement by Lycoming County Coroner Charles Kiessling.
Four people were killed and four injured on Saturday when a crane collapsed and fell from a downtown Seattle building, crushing several vehicles. Two of the fatalities were crane operators; the others were occupants of cars.
The incident occurred at approximately 3:30 p.m., when the crane reportedly separated into two parts and fell.
On January 14, 2016, a 22-year-old male laborer/carpenter (victim) employed by a residential contractor was fatally injured after falling from a single family house under construction.
While on the top plate of a studded exterior second story wall, the victim lost his balance and fell approximately 24 feet to the frozen ground below. The fall was not witnessed by any of the co-workers onsite, but the site foreman heard a noise and while trying to determine what the noise was he found the victim on the ground.
