A construction worker on his second day on the job fell 53 stories to his death yesterday at a downtown Los Angeles high-rise slated to be the tallest building in the West, officials said.
When followed, safety standards save lives and painful injuries. In the construction industry, ignoring them can lead to disaster, as it did for 54-year-old Gary Berthelot as he helped rebuild a Mississippi restaurant damaged by Hurricane Isaac.
An 18-year-old man lost his life just three months after starting work for Lunda Construction Company. The carpenter's apprentice was mixing concrete for the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge resurfacing project when a rough-terrain forklift struck and killed him.
Behr Iron & Steel Inc. of Rockford, Illinois pleaded guilty yesterday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Iain D. Johnston to willfully violating OSHA regulations, resulting in the death of an employee at the company’s facility in South Beloit, Ill.
An aviation company whose employees have quadruple the rate of injuries of other workers in their risk class has been cited by the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) for multiple health and safety violations.
For the third time since 2012, federal investigators have cited Sharpe Holdings in the death of an employee. The most recent casualty was a 51-year-old equipment operator, who suffered serious head injuries after he was ejected from the rear of a van on Sept. 26, 2015. He died the following day.
“A 21-year-old worker, with three months of work experience under her belt, lost her life because Texas Panhandle Heritage Foundation failed to provide appropriate training and protective equipment to workers handling pyrotechnics.”
No one should ever have to worry whether a loved one will come home from work alive. The reality, however, is that too many workers in this country are exposed to deadly but avoidable hazards on the job every day.
