Hispanic Construction Worker Dies After Fall from an Improvised Scaffold

Details

• Personal Author:
  Bost, Patrick ; Bresnitz, Eddy A. ; Gerwel, Barbara ; Lefkowitz, Daniel ; Ludwig, Gary ; O'Hagan, Emily ; Schill, Donald P. ; Valiante, David J.
• Corporate Authors:
  New Jersey Fatality Assessment & Control Evaluation Project (NJ FACE) ; New Jersey. Department of Health and Senior Services. Occupational Health Service
• Description:
  On October 1,2003, a 66-year-old Hispanic carpenter died after he fell from the plank of an improvised scaffold at a construction site. The victim had arrived that day from his home in Costa Rica and was joining his son (the company owner) to work on the construction of an addition to a private, suburban home. The victim was standing on a single, wooden plank placed between a small roof peak and an improvised scaffold made from discarded scrap lumber. He was installing siding on the house when he turned to talk to his son, who had just returned to the jobsite after running an errand. As he turned, the victim apparently lost his balance and fell, striking the sidewalk 10'5" below. NJ FACE investigators recommend the following safety guidelines to prevent similar incidents: 1. Construction contractors should be aware of the federal OSHA safety standards. 2. Employers should use properly designed and assembled scaffolds and/or ladders for working at heights over six feet. 3. Employers and employees should conduct a safety survey of the job site before starting work.
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Accidents, Occupational Construction Industry Occupational Health Safety Safety Management
• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Accident-potential Accident-prevention Construction Construction-industry Construction-workers Injuries Injury-prevention Ladders OSHA Region 2 Safety-education Safety-measures Safety-practices Scaffolds Traumatic-injuries Work-analysis Work-performance Work-practices

  More +
• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Construction ; Falls ; Hispanic - Construction ; Falls - Construction - Residential ; Foreign Born Workers ; Prevention through Design (PtD) ; Falls - Construction - Scaffolds
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  State
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHSFACE03NJ091
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  New Jersey ; OSHA Region 2
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  8 pdf pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20026856
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2006-112827
• 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 03NJ091, 2004 Dec ; :1-8
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2005
• Performing Organization:
  New Jersey Department of Health
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  23 - Construction - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  1991/09/30
• End Date:
  2005/08/31
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:1fdc6bedbadd546f6816e920084810eea244d28b7804f054fbaf9c38601b5cdd5d83c0d4612776116e19a1d697215a7eabc38b14d90219c22527048d7cb74d1d
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/169141/cdc_169141_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 186.37 KB ]