Trench collapse fatalities have more than doubled in last year
November 21, 2016
The death of a worker in a trench collapse in Ohio in June was, unfortunately, far from an isolated incident. The 33-year-old was one of 23 workers killed in 2016 – an alarming increase in trench-related fatalities since 2015. Twelve other workers were injured in trench cave-ins.
A 52-year-old maintenance employee at a Nebraska feed company was clearing crusted corn from the sides of a grain bin when a wall of corn collapsed and buried him in hundreds of pounds of debris. Rescued by emergency crews, he died of his injuries two days later.
A new study by the Fire Protection Research Foundation highlights positive opinions of home fire sprinklers by homeowners and most government officials in U.S. states required to fire sprinkler new homes.
A New York City construction foreman has been found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment in the death of a worker last year.
A federal investigation prompted by the death of a 50-year-old worker at the Plainfield steel processing facility has resulted in a half-dozen safety and health violations.
The absence of safety pins in two hydraulic leg stands and the failure to use stationary jacks allowed a mobile medical trailer to fall and fatally crush a 58-year-old electrician on his first day working on the job for an Illinois manufacturer of custom trailers and specialty vehicles.
A worker in Houston was crushed to death by machinery because his employer failed to provide adequate machine guarding, according to OSHA officers who investigated the May 6, 2016 fatality.
Brian Caron died on the job on March 23, 2016, when he was fatally overcome by an ammonia leak caused by a burst pipe in the machine shop of his employer, Boston fish and seafood wholesaler Stavis Seafoods Inc.
The Southeastern part of the U.S. has an especially high workplace fatality rate, with 5.2 work-related injury deaths per 100,000 workers in 2014, compared with 3.8 nationwide, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).
