Plumber Falls to His Death Through a Roof opening

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Description:
  The case of a 24 year old plumber who died when he fell 22 feet through a skylight opening to a concrete floor was examined. The victim was employed as a plumber by a construction company that had a written safety program. At the time of the accident the victim was working as a member of a crew installing various plumbing fixtures/fittings on the 36,000 square foot roof of a new building. Unguarded openings for skylights were present in the roof. The victim had been on the job for 7.5 hours when the accident occurred. He was discussing the relocation of a fixture on the roof with a coworker. As he walked away from the discussion, he was looking back over his shoulder to talk. He stepped into one of the skylight openings and fell about 22 feet to the concrete floor below. He died as a result of multiple traumatic injuries. A guardrail on the opening, as required, could have prevented the fall. The use of safety nets would also have aided the victim. Recommendations included that worksites should be monitored occasionally to ensure that employees are using required safety measures on the job, and general training measures should be supplemented with training for specific jobs and hazard which are identified at the job site.
• 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-Search Construction-workers FACE-88-06 OSHA Region 3 Safety-equipment 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/NIOSHFACE8806
• 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:
  3 pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00186170
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB89-188205
• 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 88-06, 1988 Apr ; :1-5
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1988
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  23 - Construction - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  1987/10/30
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:e0079c28f8e187b41bf4e6a3d17618845b50b9dad9724df928df9f15d96854e15ab0b67f5c8921a3cf19d6184a6b65cc1dda627d59ef12b56d6c131fd12afda3
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/164417/cdc_164417_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 224.76 KB ]