OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #825034
SOMERSET STEEL ERECTION COMPANY, INC.
CUMBERLAND, MD·
Event description
Iron worker killed in fall from ladder
Investigation abstract
At 1:15 p.m. on Wednesday, February 11, 1987, Employee #1, an iron worker, was s ay between the two employees on the ladders, with his back to Employee #1. Emplo yee #1 and the coworker each hoisted his end of the purlin. Both employees had t he ends of each rope in their hands. The coworker felt through the rope that the purlin was shaking, and turned around to see Employee #1 fall 35 ft to the floo r. He sustained multiple injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene. Accordin g to witnesses, there was no activity or movement by Employee #1 or any other em ployee at the time of the accident; he fell for an unknown reason. The top of hi s ladder was resting against a roof support beam and was tied off with wire to p revent movement. The ladder was in excellent condition, secured, and impossible to displace. All employees were journeyman iron workers and had attended ongoing tanding halfway up a 16 ft extension fiberglass ladder with aluminum rungs (half training programs provided by organized labor and employers. of a 32 ft extension ladder). The bottom of the ladder was on an elevated walkw ay 29 1/2 ft above the floor. Employee #1 was working with two coworkers who wer e installing a roof purlin. The purlin was 19 ft long and weighed 66 1/2 lb. It was to be used as support steel for an opening in the roof for a convection-type gravity-flow roof ventilator. Both ends of the purlin were being held in place by hoisting ropes, which had been wrapped around steel roof support beams at eac h end. One coworker was on another ladder and a working foreman was on the walkw
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 42 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 5
- Source
- 25
- Occupation code
- 597
- Human factor
- 14
- Environmental factor
- 18
- 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.