Three workers were recently injured in a construction accident far from us in New York. Officials say they are investigating the cause of the Texas accident in which one of the workers suffered an apparently serious head injury.
Investigators say the injuries occurred when one worker fell and struck two other workers, causing them both to fall as well.
“It was a chain of events. We’re not sure what started the fall and caused the other two to fall. that’s still being investigated,” said a spokesperson for medical personnel on the scene in Austin.
A spokesperson for a worker advocacy group said the organization has been receiving complaints about the project, though none of the complaints mentioned had to do with safety concerns. The complaints have been about the number of breaks workers are allowed, the spokesperson said.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) says falls are the number one cause of fatalities in the construction industry. Each year, more than 300 construction workers are killed on the job because they fall from heights.
Some of the falls are due to improper scaffolding construction (including the lack of guardrails on the scaffolding), others are due to such things as holes in floors, defective ladders or misuse of ladders, uncapped and protruding steel rebar and unprotected wall openings and sides.
In some cases, workers fail to make use of provided safety gear and in other cases, employers fail to provide required protective equipment to help keep their employees as safe as possible in this dangerous line of work.
Source: KVUE, “Three construction workers injured in fall,” June 20, 2012