105,313Records 71,083Employers 85,290Hospitalizations 27,770Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-10-31
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #1001254

WINDOW WASHER,BOSUN CHAIR,MOBILE SCAFFOLD,UNSECURED,WORK RULES,BROKEN CABLE,FALL,SCAFFOLD

Event
WINDOW WASHER,BOSUN CHAIR,MOBILE SCAFFOLD,UNSECURED,WORK RULES,BROKEN CABLE,FALL,SCAFFOLD
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
1001254
Report ID
751910

Event description

Employee killed in fall with single point scaffold

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 and a coworker moved a rolling tower single point scaffold from one of the building, the rolling scaffold upended and catapulted over the edge of th e building. The scaffold and Employee #1 fell 72 feet to the adjacent concrete l evel; he was killed. The employees had elected to use #9 wire to attach the coun terweights to the rear of the rolling scaffold. The wire broke, allowing the wei ghts to fall to the roof. roof to an adjacent roof to use while washing windows. They set up the scaffold and attached three 55 lb counterweights to the rear of it, without tiebacks. The y then proceeded to attach a boatswain's chair to the hook of the beam scaffold and a lifeline to the same hook. Employee #1 fitted himself with a body harness, attached the lifeline to the harness, and got into the boatswain's chair. He we nt over the side of building and proceeded to wash the exterior windows. When he finished one window, the coworker would move the rolling scaffold to an adjacen t window and Employee #1 would clean it. When the coworker looked over the side

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 32 M

    Nature of injury
    21
    Part of body
    1
    Event type
    5
    Source
    5
    Occupation code
    448
    Human factor
    4
    Environmental factor
    13
    Task assigned
    1

Codes shown verbatim from OSHA's accident-investigation database. A human-readable decoder is coming in a future release once the accident_lookup2 dictionary is loaded.