A spate of recent struck-by accidents in Texas, Indiana and Florida have left three workers dead – and OSHA investigators busy. In Robertson County, Texas, an employee at a used auto parts business died when a vehicle fell on him. OSHA is investigating the incident at Abco Auto Parts, which claimed the life of 43-year-old Carmelo Aguirre-Ortega on August 19th.

Once again, fall-related violations were behind most of the biggest fines OSHA issued to construction companies in the second quarter of 2019. One of the contractors, Shawn D. Purvis, has been charged criminally in relation to a death that occurred on one of his company's jobsites.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) will be reviewing a recent policy change, after testimony at its public meeting on Tuesday from occupational health experts and worker advocates opposed to the agency’s decision to stop naming accident victims in its reports. CSB Interim Executive Kristen acknowledged “a lot of passion around this subject,” and said that she’d asked the agency’s general counsel to review the policy and to report back with recommendations.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s decision to reverse a policy of including the names of workers killed in the incidents it investigates is drawing fire from safety advocates. In a letter to the CSB, more than fifty organizations and individuals demand that the agency reinstate its policy of naming the fatally injured workers in its reports – something it had previously done since 2014. The CSB stopped the practice recently because doing so “may infer culpability on the part of the entity responsible for the operation of the facility where the incident occurred,” according to a spokesperson.

The US Chemical Safety Board’s (CSB) investigation into an Oklahoma blowout that killed five workers blames the incident on a lack of regulations governing onshore drilling safety as well as shortcomings in safety management systems and industry standards utilized by the industry. The CSB’s final investigation report into the Pryor Trust gas well explosion in Pittsburgh County calls on regulators, industry groups, the state of Oklahoma and companies to address such gaps.

Workplace fatalities have fallen by an average of 19.5 percent in the 29 states and District of Columbia that have legalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Those surprising results from a study in the International Journal of Drug Policy run counter to post-legalization predictions that marijuana’s effects on motor skills and cognitive function would cause an increase in workplace accidents.

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.

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.

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.