The growing demand for wireless and broadcast communications over the past three decades has spurred a dramatic increase in communication tower construction and maintenance – one that exposes workers to specific hazards.
In order to erect or maintain communication towers, employees regularly climb towers, using fixed ladders, support structures or step bolts, from 100 feet to heights in excess of 1000 or 2000 feet.
Workers are at risk of serious injury or death when installing, repairing, and maintaining escalators and elevators, as well as when cleaning elevator shafts, conducting emergency evacuations of stalled elevators, or performing construction work near open shafts. A recent study by CPWR's Data Center found that while fatalities fluctuate year-to-year, the general trend in elevator-related deaths has been upward.
A construction worker has died after he fell 40 feet down an elevator shaft Wednesday at the Salt Lake City International Airport, airport officials confirmed Saturday. The man, 50, worked for Holder-Big D Construction and the company released a statement about his death. “We are deeply saddened that the worker injured on Jan. 30 has passed away,” the statement says. “Our deepest condolences go out to his family, friends and coworkers.”
A teenager loses control of a ladder – and loses his life. The FDA gets an “F” when it comes to controlling tobacco use among young people. OSHA’s final injury and illness reporting rule gets challenged in court. These were among the top stories featured on ISHN.com this week.
The New York Philharmonic last week premiered a new multimedia oratorio that uses music and old images and film footage to commemorate one of the deadliest industrial accidents in the history of the U.S. – the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.
“Fire in my Mouth,” by composer Julia Wolfe, is sung by a chorus of 146 women and girls, a number corresponding to that of the victims killed in the disaster.
A supermarket employee, Duoc Tran, fell to his death at Comumbia Market when the ladder he was climbing to retrieve an object for a customer slipped and he fell and hit his head on the floor. A construction worker was killed Saturday in a fall at the Amazon fulfillment center construction site. The Kern County Fire Department said they received a call around 3:30 p.m. for a person who fell near the 1900 block of Petrol Road.
I somehow missed the Pemberton Mill disaster that happened on January 10, 1860 when the large, 5-story factory in Lawrence, Massachusetts, collapsed without warning in what is likely “the worst industrial accident in Massachusetts history” and “one of the worst industrial calamities in American history.”
The U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) reports that 27 mining fatalities occurred in 2018 - the second lowest number ever recorded.
Eighteen fatalities occurred at surface operations; nine occurred in underground mines.
A foodborne illness outbreak, a worker fatality at a car dealership and the first-ever public agenda issued by AIHA were among the top occupational safety and health stories featured on ISHN.com this week.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data released this week show that the incidence rate for non-fatal occupational injuries and illnesses in the meat and poultry packing and processing industry reached an all-time industry low.
