The growing demand for wireless and broadcast communications over the past three decades has spurred a dramatic increase in communication tower construction and maintenance – one that exposes workers to specific hazards.
In order to erect or maintain communication towers, employees regularly climb towers, using fixed ladders, support structures or step bolts, from 100 feet to heights in excess of 1000 or 2000 feet.
Tree trimming companies should perform hazard assessments before allowing a worker to begin a task, according to investigators who looked into the electrocution death of a tree trimmer working in the backyard of a private residence.
The incident in California was unwitnessed, but occurred while the tree trimmer was trimming palm trees that were in close proximity to a utility power pole and high voltage lines.
Workers are at risk of serious injury or death when installing, repairing, and maintaining escalators and elevators, as well as when cleaning elevator shafts, conducting emergency evacuations of stalled elevators, or performing construction work near open shafts. A recent study by CPWR's Data Center found that while fatalities fluctuate year-to-year, the general trend in elevator-related deaths has been upward.
A construction worker has died after he fell 40 feet down an elevator shaft Wednesday at the Salt Lake City International Airport, airport officials confirmed Saturday. The man, 50, worked for Holder-Big D Construction and the company released a statement about his death. “We are deeply saddened that the worker injured on Jan. 30 has passed away,” the statement says. “Our deepest condolences go out to his family, friends and coworkers.”
A sheriff’s deputy in Cincinnati, Ohio was killed Saturday night after responding to a report of a suicidal man. Another deputy was injured.
According to a press release issued by the Clermont County Sheriff’s Office, Detective Bill Brewer, a 20-year-veteran of the Sheriff’s Office, was allegedly shot by a man who’d barricaded himself inside an apartment complex after calling 911 to report that he was armed and suicidal.
A teenager loses control of a ladder – and loses his life. The FDA gets an “F” when it comes to controlling tobacco use among young people. OSHA’s final injury and illness reporting rule gets challenged in court. These were among the top stories featured on ISHN.com this week.
A 16-year-old roofer was killed last year in Kentucky when he lost control of a 25-foot ladder and it made contact with a 7200-volt electric power line, according to Fatality Assessment & Control Evaluation (FACE) by the Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center.
The incident occurred at a private residential home, when the victim was trying to position an aluminum extension ladder against a roof.
The New York Philharmonic last week premiered a new multimedia oratorio that uses music and old images and film footage to commemorate one of the deadliest industrial accidents in the history of the U.S. – the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.
“Fire in my Mouth,” by composer Julia Wolfe, is sung by a chorus of 146 women and girls, a number corresponding to that of the victims killed in the disaster.
One worker died and two others were injured Tuesday in Raleigh, North Carolina when they were buried in a collapse at an excavated area.
News sources say the accident occurred at 11:15 a.m. at a worksite where affordable housing is under construction.
OSHA is investigating a construction accident Wednesday evening in Cleveland, Ohio that claimed the life of a 65-year-old worker.
News sources said crews were demolishing a three-story building when the accident occurred. The victim was operating an excavating and other workers were dismantling an elevator shaft when parts of the building fell on the excavator, crushing the man.
