Laborer Falls to His Death Through a Skylight Opening

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Description:
  An 18 year old male laborer died after falling through a skylight opening 27 feet to a concrete floor. The victim had been employed as a laborer for 8 days by a roofing and metal fabrication contractor. The company employed 60 workers, and had no written safety policy or safety program. The company had been contracted to install foam insulation boards and single ply rubber roofing over a newly constructed 225,000 square foot, corrugated steel paneled roof. On the day of the accident, the victim was part of a six man crew assigned to move insulation boards from a storage area on one side of the main roof, over the penthouse roof, to the other side of the main roof where the boards were to be installed. Ground conditions had prevented the boards being placed on the proper side of the building. At some point during this task the victim was walking backwards dragging insulation boards when he fell through the skylight opening to a concrete floor 27 feet below. The victim died the next day from multiple head and chest injuries. It is recommended that prime contractors and subcontractors contractually agree on specific site safety and health programs to be implemented prior to the initialization of work, that all skylight openings be guarded with a standard railing or covered, and that the employer design, develop, implement, and enforce a comprehensive safety program.
• Content Notes:
  Publication date provided by the authoring office. There is no publication date indicated on the resource.
• Subjects:
  Accidents, Occupational Construction Industry Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Construction-industry Construction-Search Construction-workers FACE-89-47 OSHA Region 3 Roofing-industry Safety-research Traumatic-injuries Work-practices
• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Construction ; Falls ; Falls - Construction - Commercial ; Falls - Construction - Roofs
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  NIOSH (In-House)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHFACE8947
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  Maryland ; OSHA Region 3
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSR - Division of Safety Research
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  4 pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00199719
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB91-227462
• Citation:
  Morgantown, WV: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, FACE 89-47, 1989 Dec ; :1-7
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1990
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  23 - Construction - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  1989/07/24
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:bf3bb1e89737dc1d6bd1f8a650a88d26bc6276fd1d5d0f3452e8afefe738313dba3e579d3b335dfc3d4f039c8c0ae9c3eaa8f31a839878d6247ea3dfc7aa74ff
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/164362/cdc_164362_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 287.74 KB ]