Exclusively Focused On Injury Claims

Reviewing common causes of construction-site fatalities

On Behalf of | Oct 15, 2020 | Construction Accidents

Many of those working in the construction industry in Florida may understand that their particular line of work routinely ranks among the most dangerous. Yet they undertake such work assuming that their employers have taken every precaution in order to guarantee their safety.

Some might argue that it is impossible for companies to anticipate any accidents that their employees may experience. While that may be true to a certain extent, statistics may provide an indication as to what the most common dangers facing a practitioner within an industry are.

The Fatal Four

This is especially true for the construction industry. Extensive data exists showing what the most common causes of fatal worksite accidents are. Dubbed “the Fatal Four” by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, these include:

  • Falls
  • Being struck by falling objects
  • Electrocutions
  • Crush injuries

In the context of this particular topic, “crush injuries” refer to incidents where a worker becomes caught in heavy equipment or in-between equipment or materials and work surfaces.

Commonly cited construction site accidents

Given the abundance of data available to construction contractors, one might assume they would be able to prepare to protect their workers from the aforementioned dangers. Indeed, OSHA offers several relatively straightforward recommendations on how to safeguard workers from them, such as providing personal fall arrest equipment, mandating that workers remain a safe distance away from both fixed and moving objects, placing support and protection systems into excavations deeper than 5 feet, and ensuring the constant monitoring and maintenance of electrical resources.

Yet despite this information, reports show an alarming trend in relation to the Fata Four. OSHA regulators rank many safety citations related to these specific dangers as being the common issued to construction contractors. One might reasonably argue that this demonstrates an ignorance (or indifference) to these risks.

Archives