OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14300289
BENFIELD ELECTRIC COMPANY, INC.
COLUMBIA, MD·
Event description
Employee injured in fall through wall opening
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 was working for an electrical contractor who was wiring a three-stor While passing the wall opening he lost his balance and partly fell and partly j umped 18 ft to the ground. He landed on his feet, and purposely rolled once or t wice to cushion the fall. Employee #1 bruised one foot, broke his right wrist, a nd compressed/chipped the fourth lumbar vertebra. Further work was stopped until guardrails across the wall openings had been replaced and the drywall stacks ha d been reduced in height. y garden apartment building. The building had been stocked with 4 ft by 12 ft sh eets of drywall, which had been placed on each floor through a 6 ft wide by 6 ft 8 in. high wall opening that would later house sliding doors to a balcony. The drywall stacks had been placed within a foot of the wall opening, from which the guardrails had been removed and not replaced. When Employee #1 and a coworker w ere sent to the third floor to start installing electrical switches and outlet b oxes, they had to go over or around the 2 ft high stacks of drywall. Employee #1 attempted to go around the outside end while carrying a 3 ft wooden stepladder.
Victim
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 18 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 5
- Source
- 8
- Occupation code
- 576
- Human factor
- 9
- 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.