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Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #813741

CEMENTING,FALL,SCAFFOLD

Event
CEMENTING,FALL,SCAFFOLD
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
813741
Report ID
552700

Event description

A CEMENT FINISHER FALLS INTO A GAP - STEPPING ONTO SCAFFOLD

Investigation abstract

At approximately 11:59 a.m. on Thursday, October 5, 1989, Employee #1, a cement finisher, was climbing the scaffold tower stairs to the 5th level, 52 feet above ground level. He attempted to step onto a 20-inch-wide metal scaffold panel, wh ich was used as a runaway to connect the tower to the floor. But, it appears tha t the employee stepped into a 12-inch-wide gap between the plank edge and the gu ard railing causing him to fall 52 feet to the ground level. As he fell, he atte mpted to grab the plank. However the plank was not secure. He suffered from inju ries to internal organs, fractures, and breaks. He died from the head injuries h e sustained during the fall.

Victims (2)

  1. #1 Fatality Age 44 M

    Nature of injury
    21
    Part of body
    4
    Event type
    5
    Source
    42
    Occupation code
    588
    Human factor
    6
    Environmental factor
    18
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #981 Degree 0 Age 0

    Nature of injury
    0
    Part of body
    0
    Event type
    0
    Source
    0
    Occupation code
    0
    Human factor
    0
    Environmental factor
    0
    Task assigned
    0

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.