Building Maintenance Worker Dies After Falling Down a Material Lift Shaft

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  New Jersey Fatality Assessment & Control Evaluation Project (NJ FACE) ; New Jersey. Department of Health and Senior Services. Occupational Health Service
• Description:
  On July 27, 1998, a 64-year-old building maintenance worker was fatally injured after falling nine feet down the shaft of a material lift. The victim was a self-employed construction contractor who maintained a six-story building that housed a restaurant and office spaces. An experienced construction worker, he renovated most of the building and had built a material lift for moving building materials to the upper floors. The lift (which was similar to an elevator) was on the second floor when the victim left the building to get some tools from his van. He opened the ground floor doors leading to the shaft from the street and was apparently trying to jump across the open five-foot wide shaft to reach the interior door when he fell nine feet into the basement. He died of his injuries the next day. NJ FACE investigators concluded that, in order to prevent similar incidents in the future, these safety guidelines should be followed: 1. Building owners should ensure that material lifts and elevators comply with building codes. 2. Contractors should become familiar with available resources on safety standards and safe work practices.
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Accidents, Occupational Construction Industry Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Occupational Injuries Safety Safety Management Workplace
• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Accident-potential Accident-prevention Construction Construction-equipment Construction-industry Construction-workers Injuries Injury-prevention Occupational-accidents Occupational-hazards OSHA Region 2 Safety-education Safety-equipment Safety-measures Safety-practices Traumatic-injuries Work-analysis Work-environment Work-operations Work-performance Work-practices Workplace-monitoring

  More +
• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Construction ; Falls ; Hispanic - Construction ; Foreign Born Workers ; Prevention through Design (PtD)
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  State
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHSFACE98NJ064
• 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:
  7 pdf pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20026687
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2013-100199
• 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 98NJ064, 1999 Feb ; :1-7
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1999
• 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-512:66088fee82974fc56ab809b6b7bb4a53e6e23f3d7e555e3453be29698ab7c0d4324b59d2feca9ca067421033b4dbc641f5cd3dfa914f04480780020b492ed108
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/169246/cdc_169246_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 61.13 KB ]