Municipal Lead Custodian Dies in Fall from Mobile Scaffolding - Massachusetts

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  Massachusetts Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Project (Massachusetts FACE) ; Massachusetts. Department of Public Health
• Description:
  On March 27, 2011 a 69-year-old male municipal custodian (victim) was fatally injured while painting an interior section of a school lobby. The victim went to the school alone early on a Sunday morning to finish painting the lobby area that was previously started. Although the incident was un-witnessed, it appears that the victim was on mobile scaffolding when he fell from the scaffolding landing on the lobby floor. The victim was found by a co-worker later that same day when the co-worker had opened the school to let in two cooks for a fundraiser event that was going to take place that afternoon. The co-worker immediately placed a call for Emergency Medical Services (EMS). Within minutes EMS and the local police arrived at the incident location and the victim was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. The Massachusetts FACE Program concluded that to prevent similar occurrences in the future, schools should: 1. Ensure scaffolds are erected according to the manufacturer's guidelines and OSHA standards ; 2. Ensure that fall protection is available and used by employees exposed to fall hazards ; 3. Implement a buddy system for custodial staff to limit working alone from heights during off hours ; 4. Conduct a job safety analysis (JSA) for custodial tasks to ensure proper practices and procedures are implemented enabling the task to be performed safely ; 5. Provide all custodial staff with training on scaffolding and ladders that are used to complete tasks ; 6. Ensure that custodial departments develop, implement, and enforce a comprehensive health and safety program ; and 7. Provide work environments that, at a minimum, meet all relevant Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations and industry accepted standards of practice per the Department of Labor Standards' policy.
• Subjects:
  • Accident Prevention
  • Accidental Falls
  • Accidents
  • Accidents, Occupational
  • Construction Industry
  • Occupational Health
  • Personal Protective Equipment
  • Safety
  • Safety Management
  • Staff Development
• Keywords:
  • OSHA Region 1
  • Accident-analysis
  • Accident-potential
  • Accident-prevention
  • Accidents
  • Construction-equipment
  • Injuries
  • Injury-prevention
  • Safety-education
  • Safety-measures
  More +
• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Construction ; Falls ; Falls - Construction - Commercial ; Prevention through Design (PtD)
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  State
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHSFACE11MA008
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  Massachusetts ; OSHA Region 1
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-9
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20041003
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2012-111927
• Citation:
  Morgantown, WV: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, FACE 11MA008, 2012 Jan ; :1-9
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2012
• Performing Organization:
  Massachusetts State Department of Public Health
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  61 - Educational Services - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  2005/07/01
• End Date:
  2026/06/30
• Resource Number:
  FACE-11MA008
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/165199/cdc_165199_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 237.24 KB]
• Collection(s):
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) Program ; National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:df49d10baa4b795e91a4e9aeb9d48771e1fe5ab43b848724b4c44d087c5e5a9ea8c624dbc605f2c7c25110a720fa941c1379eb5aa5d23341a5ff27f2906886d7