OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #785071
MARTIN CONSTRUCTION CO OF OREGON INC
MILWAUKIE, OR·
Event description
Employee paralyzed in fall from scaffold
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 and a coworker were sandblasting the inside of a 1 1/2 million gallo independent safety line, which could have prevented the fall; inadequate confin ed space entry procedures for a potentially toxic flammable combustible atmosphe re; lack of adequate breathing air to sandblast hoods; and inadequate supervisio n of employees by management. n capacity water tank from a two point suspended scaffold. It appears that the s caffold did not have adequate planking and guardrails, and most importantly, no independent safety lines were installed. While the employees secured the scaffol d, one of the wooden 2 by 4 guardrails broke, causing the scaffold to move. Empl oyee #1, who was not secured by the required independent safety line, fell appro ximately 30 ft from the scaffold to the tank floor. He suffered a fracture to hi s spinal cord and is currently in the hospital paralyzed from the chest down. Th e following factors contributed to the accident: inadequate scaffold; lack of an
Victim
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 26 Male
- Nature of injury
- Fracture (12)
- Part of body
- BACK (3)
- Accident type
- FALL(FROM ELEVATION) (5)
- Source of injury
- HOISTING APPARATUS (24)
- Occupation
- Painters, construction and maintenance (579)
- Human factor
- SAFETY DEVICES REMOVED/INOPER. (9)
- Environmental factor
- GAS/VAPOR/MIST/FUME/SMOKE/DUST (7)
- Task assigned
- Task regularly assigned (1)
Labels are OSHA's own, from the code dictionary published with the accident-investigation file. The raw code is shown beside each one so this page can be reconciled against OSHA's bulk data. OSHA notes that nature of injury, part of body, source of injury and accident type in this file are not coded to the Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System, and that the occupation titles are not standardised — so these values are not directly comparable with the OIICS-coded severe injury reports.