Fatal Incident Summary Report: Scaffold Collapse involving a Window Washer

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) Program
• Description:
  The case of a window washer who suffered fatal injuries after a fall from a scaffold that collapsed was examined. On July 1, 1983, during window cleaning, the scaffold which two workers were using while cleaning windows on the thirty fourth floor of a building collapsed without warning. One worker was saved by his independent safety line
  
  however, the lanyard of the other worker broke, and he fell to his death. The scaffold involved was permanently installed on the building and had a history of previous problems including the overspeed sensor falling off, the wire rope not reeving evenly, improper operation of the swing length connector pins, misalignment of the scaffold rollers, rubbing of the hoist motor against the scaffold framing, breakage of the overspeed brake tilt switch, and a problem with the hoist motor switch. All of the problems were reported to have been corrected prior to the fatal incident. No definitive conclusion was drawn as to the reason for the collapse of the scaffold. It was recommended that employees be reminded frequently of the hazard of entanglement of lifelines and lanyards, and that manufacturers research how to eliminate the problem of entanglements.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Accidents, Occupational Occupational Health Occupational Injuries Safety
• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Accident-prevention FACE-83-007 Industrial-equipment Occupational-accidents Safety-research Work-practices
• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Falls
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  NIOSH (In-House)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHFACE8307
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  Pennsylvania ; 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 pdf pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00217761
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB94-151545
• 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:
  1983
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  56 - Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  1983/07/01
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:e1a062979408892511d7342c16d39d15e6731378749f4712f9a095d1d11c1b3ec09bd44ddc460dba681f4e76f8b6fd5161467573e35dd5a94a265bd481764481
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/167492/cdc_167492_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 319.11 KB ]