OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #894097
CHEST,GUARDRAIL,UNSECURED,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,BACK,FALL,LOST BALANCE
Event description
Two employees injured in fall when rail balcony joint fails
Investigation abstract
At approximately 10:50 a.m. on April 5, 1990, Employee #2 was on a balcony on th oyee #2 was leaning with his left arm resting on the rail and was pointing towar d the right corner of the balcony with his other arm. Employee #1 was approximat ely 2 ft to the left of Employee #2 and was also leaning on the rail, facing tow ard the right end of the balcony. While they were in this position, the left end of the rail popped loose from the building wall, causing both employees to lose their balance and to fall approximately 19 ft to dirt and debris. Both were tre ated at the scene before being transported by ambulance to Fair Oak Hospital. Em ployee #1 was admitted with back injuries; Employee #2 suffered severe upper bod y strains and was examined and released. e third floor of building 7D. He was showing Employee #1 how a particular electr ical unit was to be wired because Employee #1 had never performed this procedure before. A single spliced 2 by 4 spanned the 9 ft 2 in. balcony opening at a hei ght of approximately 42 in. From the balcony facing outward, the 2 by 4 rail was attached to a 2 by 4 stop block on the right end that could absorb pressure aga inst it. On the left end, however, the 2 by 4 rail was nailed into the building wall from the outside, opposite to the direction in which pressure would be appl ied. While showing Employee #1 where the electrical unit was to be located, Empl
Victims (2)
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 24 M
- Nature of injury
- 20
- Part of body
- 3
- Event type
- 5
- Source
- 8
- Occupation code
- 575
- Human factor
- 17
- Environmental factor
- 13
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#2 Non-hospitalized injury Age 37 M
- Nature of injury
- 20
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 5
- Source
- 8
- Occupation code
- 575
- Human factor
- 17
- 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.