105,313Records 71,083Employers 85,290Hospitalizations 27,770Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-10-31
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #972109

FRACTURE,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,PLANK,LACERATION,FALL,LOST BALANCE,SCAFFOLD,WRIST

Event
FRACTURE,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,PLANK,LACERATION,FALL,LOST BALANCE,SCAFFOLD,WRIST
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
972109
Report ID
854910

Event description

Employee falls from scaffold while trying to retrieve plank

Investigation abstract

At approximately 1:30 p.m. on December 12, 1989, Employee #1 was passing down pl anks from a scaffold and dropped one. While trying to retrieve the plank, he los t his balance and fell 16 feet. The falling plank caused him to be catapulted 12 feet from the base of the scaffold he was working from. He landed on cement ste ps, breaking both wrists. He also sustained a 3 inch gash on his forehead above his left eye. Employee #1 was hospitalized for reconstructive bone surgery on hi s wrists.

Victim

  1. #1 Hospitalized Age 32 M

    Nature of injury
    12
    Part of body
    24
    Event type
    5
    Source
    5
    Occupation code
    869
    Human factor
    8
    Environmental factor
    15
    Task assigned
    2

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.