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 #14251474

ROOF OPENING COVER,SKYLIGHT,GUARDRAIL,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,FALL,ROOF OPENING,PAINTER,UNGUARDED,INATTENTION

Event
ROOF OPENING COVER,SKYLIGHT,GUARDRAIL,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,FALL,ROOF OPENING,PAINTER,UNGUARDED,INATTENTION
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14251474
Report ID
453710

Event description

Employee killed in fall through unguarded skylight

Investigation abstract

Employee #1, of a painting maintenance company, was cleaning and repainting the roof of a trucking concern. The roof was 120 ft by 100 ft and had 10 ft by 3 ft skylights installed throughout. The skylights were not guarded by standard guard rails or by a cover while the employees worked on the roof. When Employee #1 had finished washing the roof on the north side of the building with water and a br ush, he picked up two 5 gallon buckets, one of which was empty, and said he was going to take them down the ladder. Apparently distracted by a plane flying over head, Employee #1 looked up, then stepped onto the skylight. He fell 23 ft to a concrete floor and died of blunt trauma.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 54 M

    Nature of injury
    12
    Part of body
    13
    Event type
    5
    Source
    8
    Occupation code
    579
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    13
    Hazardous substance
    8880
    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.