Properly shoring trenches require a lot of extra room, time and money on job sites. Because of that, many contractors try to cut corners and skip the shoring, but doing so can have fatal consequences. We recently wrote about trench safety and a neat tool that makes it very easy, which you can find here.
Back in January of 2012, 36 year old day laborer, Raul Zapata, was installing a concrete foundation at a residential construction site in California. The 12 foot deep trench collapsed, burying him alive. Rescue workers could not get to the site quick enough and he died on the scene.
The fact that Zapata’s employer, US Sino Investment, ignored trench safety and ended up resulting in a death is a tragedy. Even more of a tragedy is the fact that just 3 days prior, a Milipitas, California building inspector had the site shut down due to improper shoring on the very save excavation. Not only did the employer fail to provide a safe work environment to begin with, it also ignored safety after they were called out by the building inspector. That’s negligence and it should never be tolerated.
Cal/OSHA, a division of Department of Industrial Relations, takes employer negligence very seriously, stating, “When our investigations uncover negligent behavior by employers, we exercise our full jurisdiction to protect workers – including referrals to district attorneys for prosecution."
During their investigation after the death, Cal/OSHA determined that, at the time of the accident:
- No employees were wearing head protection
- The excavation had not been properly shored
- The employer did not have a competent person on site to make sure shoring was correct
- The employer did not have workers’ compensation insurance
In total, US Sino Investment, was penalized $168,175 in citations. Last Friday, Cal/OSHA’s criminal investigation of US Sino Investment owner Richard Liu and Project Manager Dan Luo were responsible for the death and were sentenced to two years in prison for involuntary manslaughter.
It’s a sobering thought knowing that owners and project managers can be sentenced to prison for accidents on the job site, that’s why it’s so important to create a culture of safety within the entire company.
Cal/OSHA Criminal Investigation of Worker’s Death Results in Prison Term for Construction Company Owner and Project Manager | Department of Industrial Relations
The construction industry has never been one to freely share information without charging a fee. That’s changed slightly recently, with some major players willing to provide useful tools and information to help us become better. For instance, we recently shared that Procore has released hundreds of free continuing education courses on their education platform. Another useful site we’ve found recently has shared dozens of toolbox talks to help your team on the jobsite learn about safety.
[guest post] The reality is that construction workers, who already face hundreds of hazards just by working in the industry, are also often at risk for becoming injured or ill due to contact with wildlife.
It should be obvious that formal safety training is extremely important to running a successful safety program on any construction site. The most common route for construction employers to train their staff is through OSHA 10 and OSHA 30 courses, but, in the past, it was pretty confusing to determine who was actually authorized to teach the courses and where to find them.
[guest post] Spring is here and before we know it, summer will follow. In both seasons, weather conditions can present dangers to construction workers. Without education and preparation, workers may find that they are seriously ill or injured during work.
Crane collapses on construction jobsites are usually pretty terrifying, especially when the jobsite is full of workers. A construction site in St. Petersburg, Florida got extremely lucky when a large construction crane collapsed and narrowly missed several running workers.
Construction workers rely on power tools to do their jobs every day. Working with power tools is also inherently dangerous, but compounding that risk with a manufacturers defect could be a recipe for disaster. Product recalls on tools, thankfully, don’t happen very often, but it’s extremely important to find out about them before you put yourself at risk for potential injury.
Every construction company wants to avoid workplace accidents on their jobsites. The problem is, far too many companies don’t have a structured safety program to help them achieve lower injury rates. The Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. (ABC) recently released their 2018 Safety Performance Report, which showed how companies were achieving a 670% lower injury rate versus the national average.
If your company did not electronically submitted its 2016 OSHA 300A injury and illness log to OSHA before December 31, 2017, they could be facing an other-than-serious violation with a maximum penalty of $12,934. We tried to warn you, and warn you, and warn you again.
[guest post] The “fatal four” are falls, electrocutions, struck by an object, and caught in/between. Falls alone cause over half of the deaths in construction. With today’s technology, the fatal four could be a thing of the past.
Since the FIU bridge collapse last Thursday, there has been a lot of speculation on how exactly this catastrophe happened, based on pieces of information learned over the past few days, as well as a couple grainy videos of the collapse. It’s going to be a long time before investigations into the true causes are determined and all the dust surrounding impending lawsuits clears, but for now, we have one very interesting Youtube video explaining a plausible cause of the failure.