Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025
105,991Records 71,450Employers 85,836Hospitalizations 27,959Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-11-30

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14298509

WICOMICO CONSTRUCTION COMPANY

Event
DISMANTLING, WORK RULES, CONSTRUCTION, FALL, FALL PROTECTION, STRUCK BY, LOST BALANCE, UNTRAINED
NAICS
000000
Inspection type
Accident-driven
Activity number
#18816934
Employer profile
WICOMICO CONSTRUCTION COMPANY
Summary number
14298509
Report ID
352410

Event description

Employee injured in 16 ft fall from perimeter wall

Investigation abstract

On August 21, 1987, Employee #1 and a coworker were working at a sewage treatmen ng from a mobile scaffold platform, unfastened his end of the brace and tucked h is hammer into his carpenter's belt. Before he could hand over the brace, Employ ee #1 began pulling the board toward himself. The weight of the board proved to be too much for Employee #1 to handle and he let the brace fall. As it fell, the perimeter wall acted as a fulcrum and the portion of the brace that extended be yond the wall struck Employee #1, causing him to lose his balance and fall appro ximately 16 ft to the concrete floor. Employee #1 was hospitalized for his injur ies. There was never any fall protection provided for Employee #1, and he had ne ver been trained to recognize the potential hazards, such as falls, related to t he profession. t plant construction site, removing the wooden braces that held the concrete col umns of an aeration tank's perimeter walls. Employee #1 would pry a board off th e perimeter wall and wait for the coworker to unfasten the brace at the column, after which the coworker would hand the brace to Employee #1. Employee #1 would then walk down the 24 in. wide perimeter wall and deposit the brace approximatel y 70 ft away. They had been performing this job for over an hour when Employee # 1 pried lose his end of a particular 2 by 6 brace that was approximately 16 ft l ong and extended over the perimeter wall by as much as 4 ft. The coworker, worki

Victim

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 28 M

    Nature of injury
    12
    Part of body
    19
    Event type
    5
    Source
    42
    Occupation code
    567
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    18
    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.