Fatality Narrative: Ironworker Falls 30 Feet Through Skylight Roof Opening

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  Washington (State). Department of Labor and Industries
• Description:
  A 60-year-old ironworker died when he fell 30 feet through a skylight roof opening. The victim had 39 years of experience as an ironworker. He had previously worked for his employer, a poured concrete foundation and structure contractor, as a union referral. The job site was a new construction precast concrete building for storage of water tanks. On the day of the incident, he and other crew members were working on the building's roof. The victim's task, which was a normal part of his job, was to weld roof ties to secure the precast roof sections to ensure structural stability. He was using personal fall protection, including a full body harness with a selfretracting lanyard attached to a roof anchor point. At one point when he was out sight of the crew members, he disconnected from his lanyard. He then began moving the welding equipment to another area. He walked backwards pulling on the welding cable which in turn pulled on the wire feeder case, moving it along. As he was doing this, he stepped into a 7-foot by 3-foot skylight roof opening, and fell 30 feet to the ground below. As crew members responded, provided aid, and summoned help, the conscious victim told them what he had done. An employee called 911. An EMS helicopter arrived and took the victim to a hospital, where he died several hours later. State workplace safety investigators found that the victim was not using his fall protection system, though there were adequate fall protection anchors and lanyards available. The previous day a coworker had seen the victim not using fall protection on two occasions and told him that he needed to tie-off. Typically, the employer covered skylight openings before workers started work on a roof. In this incident, 3 out of 4 skylight openings were covered, but they did not have enough material on site to cover the opening which the victim fell through. Description provided by NIOSH
• Subjects:
  • Accidental Falls
  • Accidents
  • Construction Industry
  • Ferrous Compounds
  • Metal Workers
  • Occupational Health
  • Safety
  • Workplace
• Keywords:
  • Workers
  • Work environment
  • Construction
  • Construction workers
  • Iron workers
  • Falls
  • Fall protection
  • Roofing
  • Roof falls
  • Roof supports
  More +
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Report
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 10 ; Washington
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20051461
• Citation:
  Olympia, WA: Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, 71-169-2018, 2018 Apr; :1
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2018
• Performing Organization:
  Washington State Department of Labor and Industries
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Fatality narrative: ironworker falls 30 feet through skylight roof opening
• End Date:
  20260630
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/228735/cdc_228735_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 548.24 KB]
• Collection(s):
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) Program ; National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:ebd967fc3f7e753c1cc5b8d4379baeb52e6785eeb9856a5063e566fd6e844e13b649167abb91e536105498ca811720c7a46218f9710cfabfbffa59758201697b