Workplace falls once against top violations list
- For the 13th consecutive year, workplace falls topped the top 10 safety violations for fiscal year 2023 with 7,271 violations, according to OSHA.
- That more than doubled the second most cited violation, hazard communications, with 3,213.
- In addition, 35% of employers failed to provide employees with a written communication program that met standards requirements.
- OSHA also reported that 62% of employers failed to have portable ladders being used to access an upper landing be at least three feet above the upper landing surface.
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Worker falls to death stocking merchandise
- The Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the state’s first worker death in 2024.
- A 25-year-old assistant yard/receiving manager at the Ionia County Menards was stocking merchandise with the use of an order picker truck when he fell from the lift about 20 feet onto the concrete floor below.
- First responders treated him at the scene and he was transported to the hospital, where he later died.
- The safety equipment was working at the time of the fall, but was likely not used appropriately, the Ionia County Sheriff’s Office said. MIOSHA took over the investigation.
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Unresponsive firefighter advisory
- NIOSH released a Safety and Health advisory on the rapid removal of unresponsive firefighters from turnout gear and self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA).
- The institute cautioned fire departments and fire training facilities to ensure all fire instructors, fire officers, and firefighters.
- The institute released a report in 2022 on a career probationary firefighter’s death during SCBA confidence training at a fire academy.
- The firefighter was maneuvering through a tunnel prop wearing personal protective equipment, which had the SCBA facepiece covered to simulate visual disruption.
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NIH employee dead after falling through shaft
- A 45-year-old employee of the National Institutes of Health died after falling through an air shaft on the Bethesda, Md.-based Clinical Center campus.
- Akwasi Addae was an electrician for the NIH and was working on the exterior of the building when the incident occurred.
- Addae fell into an air handling shaft, which Montgomery County Fire and Rescue workers described as leading to an “underground vault.”
- Addae fell between 20 and 30 feet and it appeared that he was walking or standing on the grate.
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