When designing construction projects in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, planners must consider potential safety hazards. By addressing the risks during the planning phase, employees arrive on the building site with full knowledge of the risks and training to prevent work injury. Sadly, this rarely happens, and the consequences are often devastating.
If the planners of a housing project in another state did hazard assessment during the planning phase, serious on-the-job injuries might have been avoided. Emergency workers responded to the construction site on a recent Monday afternoon after receiving a report of a worksite accident. Reportedly, a crew of frame workers tried to hoist a wall section onto the second story of a house under construction. It appeared the wall was just too heavy. It fell and caused injuries to four workers.
Firefighters arrived at the scene to find one man more severely injured than the other three. They learned that the 30 foot by 15 foot wall section trapped one roofer. However, before emergency workers arrived, three co-workers managed to extricate the trapped man. Firefighters brought the victim to a waiting helicopter that rushed him to a hospital.
The severity of the work injury this man suffered is not known, but he will likely face high medical bills, and he might also be absent from work for a considerable period of time. The financial impact of such a workplace accident on the finances of a Pennsylvania family can be significant, and relief is available through the state’s workers’ compensation insurance program. Benefits typically cover medical expenses and a percentage of lost income.
Source: kingston.wickedlocal.com, “One worker pinned, three others injured in Kingston wall collapse“, Neal Simpson, Nov. 15, 2016