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Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14562680

FRACTURE,ROOF,CONSTRUCTION,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,SCAFFOLD COLLAPSE,TWO PT SUSP SCAFFOLD,SKULL,FALL,FALL PROTECTION,TIE-OFF

Event
FRACTURE,ROOF,CONSTRUCTION,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,SCAFFOLD COLLAPSE,TWO PT SUSP SCAFFOLD,SKULL,FALL,FALL PROTECTION,TIE-OFF
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14562680
Report ID
214700

Event description

One employee killed, one injured in scaffold collapse

Investigation abstract

At about 10:30 a.m. on December 9, 1988, Employees #1 and #2 were on a two-point suspension scaffold apparently repairing a seventh floor roof terrace front edg e about 50 ft above the ground. The scaffold parapet clamps broke away, causing the scaffold to fall to the ground. These roof clamps did not have tiebacks and Employees #1 and #2 fell with the scaffold because their safety belts were not a ttached to independent life lines. Also, they were not wearing their safety belt s, which were secured to the back of the scaffold. Employee #1 landed on the sid ewalk; he died there. Employee #2 apparently landed on the ground and the scaffo ld landed on him. Employee #2 was taken to the hospital with a skull fracture.

Victims (2)

  1. #1 Fatality Age 29 M

    Nature of injury
    21
    Part of body
    4
    Event type
    5
    Source
    24
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    4
    Environmental factor
    13
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #2 Hospitalized Age 22 M

    Nature of injury
    6
    Part of body
    13
    Event type
    5
    Source
    24
    Occupation code
    999
    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.