3 simple steps to construction site safety

There are more than 10 million construction workers in the United States. In, 2011, 4,909 were killed on the job. Construction site safety is a top priority for many companies but, all too often, safety precautions fall through the cracks.

Scaffolding accidents are one of the most common causes of injury. Every year 4,500 workers are injured in scaffolding accidents, and about 50 of these injuries result in death. But if the correct safety precautions are followed, the majority of these and other types of accidents can be prevented.

Unfortunate incidents

In May, a man from Edgecomb, Maine was awarded $500,000 in damages after falling from scaffolding while at work. His injuries required four major surgeries followed by two years of recovery and caused him to become permanently disabled.

While working at the famed Wembley Stadium in London, two men fell from scaffolding at a height of 100 feet. One man became trapped under the scaffolding and was pronounced dead on the scene. The other man was airlifted to the local hospital with leg injuries.

Two workers fell when their cherry picker toppled and were saved by a safety harness in Brooklyn, NY. But a harness failed to help two workers in Portsmouth, NH when the lift they were standing on experienced a sudden mechanical malfunction. Both men suffered injuries are were taken by ambulance to the Portsmouth Regional Hospital.

The construction company that the two men were working for was investigated. According to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) the company’s workplace safety record had two previous minor violations in New Hampshire, and was fined $1,125 for violating an OSHA standard that requires steel beams to be guarded to eliminate the hazard of a worker falling and being impaled. The list could go on and on.

Accident prevention

Many of the above accidents may have been avoided had the construction companies paid closer attention to safety. Here are three tips to form the foundation of your construction site safety plan:

1. Proper employee training is the first step to accident prevention. And if you find you are unfamiliar with a piece of equipment be sure to take a safety training course before operating it.

2. OSHA requires that scaffolding equipment undergo regular inspection, and pays strict attention to ladder access and guard rail heights in particular. Once a piece of equipment is properly inspected and has passed its all of its safety testing, it is outfitted with a label that states that it is safe to be used on the job. If the equipment fails to pass inspection a “danger” tag may be placed on the machine instead to ensure the safety of the workers.

3. If for any reason you feel a piece of equipment is not operating properly you should check the safety label and the date of the last inspection. It’s always better to be safe than sorry and there is no such thing as too many safety inspections.