OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14394126
W. S. BELLOWS CONSTRUCTION CO.
NEW ORLEANS, LA·
Event description
Employee dies after fall through suspended ceiling
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 and a coworker were dismantling a 1 in. thick plaster ceiling that w as supported by metal lathe suspended by #8 tie wires. They would cut an approxi mately 26 square ft ceiling panel into about 6 square ft sections, each section supported by four tie wires. They would then cut the tie wires with bolt cutters and drop the sections approximately 18 ft to the floor. Employee #1 and the cow orker were on the ceiling and had cut one section loose when the section behind the one on which they were kneeling fell. Employee #1 fell head first to the con crete floor, sustaining serious head injuries. He died approximately two weeks l ater.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 35 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 13
- Event type
- 5
- Source
- 8
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 6
- Environmental factor
- 8
- 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.