Friends of a construction worker who was killed in a three-story fall recently organized a fundraiser in Syracuse to benefit the man’s wife and three children. The accident took place in November while the man was installing metal decking on a renovation project at the State University College at Oswego.

Falls are the No. 1 cause of construction site fatalities, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, accounting for more than one of every three on-the-job deaths. Falls took the lives of 251 construction workers in 2011, a year in which there were 721 total deaths in the industry.

Sometimes falls are the result of OSHA violations on construction sites.

OSHA provides guidelines to employers for the prevention of workplace-falls:

Duty to have fall protection

• Walking/working surfaces must be structurally sound and strong enough to support employees safely.
• Surfaces at 6 feet and higher must have guardrail systems, safety net systems or personal fall arrest systems (except when these pose greater hazards to employees).

Training requirements

• Employees who could be exposed to fall hazards must be provided adequate training.
• This training must include the correct procedures for creating and maintaining the fall protection to be used.
• Each trained employee must receive a written Certification of Training.

If you have been hurt in a fall or any construction-site accident in New York or New Jersey, you need an experienced construction injury lawyer on your side. Contact the Ginarte law firm for a free consultation about your case.

Source:

OSHA: Commonly Used Statistics

OSHA: Construction Standards and Resources

Syracuse.com: “Benefit raises money for family of iron worker killed in construction accident”