Good Construction Related Fall Accidents Research Paper Example

The fall accident happened on October 25th, 2011. It involved a worker called Javier Salinas aged 36 (Gordon 2012). The worker was working on the roof of the Chelsea Piers the sports complex was under construction. The worker who was from Danbury was an employee of the Trumbull Contracting firm. The employee fell while working on the roofing project; specifically Javier was installing metal roofing. When he missed his footing, he fell and died as a result of several blunt and traumatic injuries.
The initial thoughts on the cause of the accident are that Javier must have missed his step or lost his footing while on the roof. The accident must have resulted from the complacency which led to the worker disregarding personal fall arrest systems. The absence of a safety harness anchor point attached to the employee caused the accident because if he were secured, the harness would have prevented the fall. I also think that the absence of a safety net also caused the accident. Despite the risk that the work involved, there was no safety net to break any possible falls. If there were a net in place, then Javier’s fall would have been broken before he hit the ground and prevented his death.
A potential protection plan in the case would have involved putting in place guardrails. The guardrails would have mitigated the fall risk to some degree. Guardrails would have also been useful in securing the body harnesses. Another protection plan would have involved the Trumbull Contracting firm educating its employees on the fall hazards that were present in the type of work they were carrying out. The firm should also have put in place safety nets around the areas especially when undertaking the roofing project.

Reference

Gordon, M. (2012, April 20). OSHA Fines Firm in Stamford Construction Death. The Advocate p. 2. Retrieved from http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/