Construction company cited for fatal accident
Construction company cited for fatal accident
The Occupational Safety and Health Admini-stration has cited J.B. Coxwell Contracting Inc. and proposed penalties totaling $112,050 following a fatal accident, which took place Dec. 22, 1999, at a Jacksonville, FL, construction site.
According to James Borders, OSHA’s Jackson-ville area director, the accident occurred at a road-widening and storm-drainage project. At the time of the accident, the victim was working in a 9-foot-deep trench. When rigging used to lower a 5-ton pipe into the excavation failed, the worker was hit and killed as the pipe rolled toward him in the trench.
Being struck by an object is one of four hazards addressed in Florida’s Construction Accident Reduction Emphasis (CARE) program. CARE was initiated in 1999 to reduce the number of construction fatalities in Florida. Last year, 54 construction workers lost their lives in Florida from on-the-job accidents.
OSHA’s inspection of the fatality resulted in citations for three serious violations, including two that dealt with the failed rigging — overloading the wire rope choker sling and not inspecting the threads of the load hook used to lift 5-ton pipes. The company received a third serious citation for not providing an exit ladder near employees working in the trench. The three serious violations drew penalties totaling $13,050.
The remaining $99,000 penalty was proposed for two willful violations of OSHA’s trenching standards. These included not keeping the spoil pile back from the edge of the 9-foot deep excavation and not protecting employees working in the trench from cave-in hazards by properly sloping the trench walls or using trench boxes.
"Company managers had first-hand knowledge of the dangerous working conditions at the Jacksonville site," Borders says. "Trench walls were not properly sloped, and even though trench boxes were available, management made a decision not to use them. Additionally, a spoil pile was close enough to the edge of the trench to compromise the stability of the trench wall."
Borders adds that the situation was further aggravated by the fact that an excavator was sitting on top of the spoil pile increasing the possibility of a cave-in.
OSHA defines a willful violation as one that is committed with an intentional disregard of, or plain indifference to, the requirements of the Occupational Safety and Health Act and regulations.
A serious violation is one in which there is a substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result and that the employer knew or should have known of the hazard.
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