Articles Tagged with ''construction accident''

OSHA has cited Benco Builders of the Virginias Inc. for multiple safety hazards, including lack of fall protection, after an employee suffered serious injuries from a 19-foot fall off a roof. The Princeton, West Virginia-based contractor faces proposed penalties totaling $86,916. After inspecting a work site where Benco was the general contractor responsible for demolishing an existing structure and constructing two steel/metal buildings, OSHA issued a willful citation for failure to provide and require employees to wear fall protection during roofing work.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) often called drones are increasingly used for military, recreational, public, and commercial purposes. UAVs have the potential to prevent injury and death in the construction industry where nearly 1,000 workers died in 2015. Advancements in UAV technology could help reduce construction-related injury and death from falls, toxic chemical exposures, electrical hazards, or traumatic injury from vehicle and equipment collisions.

Workers at a Birmingham, Alabama framing company were wearing fall protection harnesses when OSHA inspectors visited the sight, but the harnesses were not tied off to prevent a fall. Structural Subcontractors Service, LLC was cited for exposing workers to fall hazards and faces proposed penalties totaling $102,669.

Two New York City construction workers at two different worksites plunged to their deaths and another was seriously injured Thursday – a day after the City Council approved a controversial construction safety bill.

An electrical worker died June 28 after falling 75 feet at the new Little Caesars Arena construction site in Detroit, according to the Detroit Free Press. Detroit Deputy Fire Commission Dave Forell said the man was in cardiac arrest when emergency crews arrived. The 46-year-old victim was found in the bleacher section.

Last week wasn’t a good one for New York City’s construction industry, which has come under increasing criticism for taking safety shortcuts under pressure from high-end developers eager to capitalize on the city’s building boom.

The owner of a New York City construction company has been charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the death of an employee. News sources say Michael Weiss is accused of ignoring repeated requests for material to use in shoring up a retaining wall adjacent to a site where his employees were conducting excavation.

Standing on rooftops and rebar are facts of life in the construction industry, but fatal falls from these heights do not have to be. In the United States each year, 10,000 construction workers are seriously injured from falls at the worksite (1). In 2015 alone, 350 construction workers perished due to falls, accounting for nearly 40% of all construction sector fatalities (2).