Hispanic Laborer Dies after Falling through a Second Story Floor Opening in a Single Family Home under Construction --North Carolina

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) Program
• Description:
  On September 5, 2006, a 30-year-old construction laborer (the victim) was fatally injured when he fell through a floor opening to a concrete floor approximately 10 feet, 10 inches below. The victim had spent the majority of his work shift cutting plywood sheathing and handing it up to coworkers who were sheathing the roof. He was working from the second floor of a two-story, single family home under construction where he and other workers had completed most, but not all, of the subfloor (plywood sheathing secured over floor joists) on previous workdays. They had left a floor area open in an attic space where a walk-in closet was to be constructed later. At the end of the shift, the victim's lead worker asked two workers to complete the second story subfloor in the attic space. One of these workers joined the roofers to lay roofer's felt. The other co-worker joined the victim and together, they cut two sheets of plywood sheathing and placed them over the joists in the open area in the attic space. They were not wearing fall protection. The co-worker reported that he was looking down at the sheets of unsecured plywood sheathing trying to make the pieces fit into an opening that was not square and when he looked up the victim was gone. The victim had apparently stepped onto a piece of the unsecured plywood sheathing that covered part of the floor opening, and when the plywood sheathing pivoted on the floor joist, he fell through the opening. The victim's co-worker immediately phoned their employer who was working off-site. The victim's employer then called the general contractor's field manager, who was working on-site, and the field manager called 911. Emergency medical services (EMS) arrived within minutes and immediately transported the victim to an area hospital. The victim was pronounced dead in the emergency room.
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Accidents, Occupational Construction Industry Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Accident-prevention Construction-industry Construction-Search Construction-workers Injuries Injury-prevention OSHA Region 4 Surveillance Traumatic-injuries Work-practices

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• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Construction ; Falls ; Hispanic - Construction ; Falls - Construction - Residential ; Foreign Born Workers
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  NIOSH (In-House)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHFACE200701
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  North Carolina ; OSHA Region 4
• 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:
  12 pages
• Contributor:
  Higgins, Doloris N.
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20032069
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2007-111085
• Citation:
  Morgantown, : U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2007
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  23 - Construction - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  2006/09/05
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:42ae308f53c5a543bbf0f3a7595aaf88e405a3bae6bef86740fcc7b5b99949aff8b73a94254ba012099ef6b66f0c53bb6d869ee3991d923350a684a92e0e09d0
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/167275/cdc_167275_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 359.01 KB ]