Framing Firm Proved after Juvenile’s 30-Foot Fall

scaffolding

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating Detweiler’s Building Co., LLC, a West Farmington, Ohio-based framing contractor, after a juvenile male worker was hospitalized with a serious head injury following a roughly 30-foot fall from a construction site on Sept. 17.
Records show OSHA previously fined the company at least four times for fall-related violations, including a $2,000 fine in 2012 after workers on scaffolding about 18 feet up lacked fall arrest systems or guardrails, and a $9,093 fine in 2019 after workers 27 feet above ground worked without guardrails, safety nets or fall arrest systems.
In April 2024, OSHA fined Detweiler’s more than $10,000 (later reduced to about $5,100) for three serious violations at a Bellevue residential site, including failing to ensure fall protection 20 feet above ground, failing to protect workers’ heads from falling objects, and failing to ensure proper eye and face protection.
An OSHA spokeswoman confirmed the agency opened an investigation into the Highland Park incident and has six months to complete it, during which no further details will be released.

The union representing teachers in Cook County School District 130 in Illinois filed a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, including dozens of photographs, after weeks of unresolved concerns about unsanitary conditions in school buildings across Blue Island, Crestwood, Robbins and Alsip, Illinois.
Teachers reported feces spread across the floor and walls of a boys’ bathroom, along with mice droppings, cockroaches and flies in gyms, lunchrooms, classrooms and bathrooms, according to Sherri Roozee-Sera, president of the Blue Island Education Association.
Teachers say the problems worsened after the district replaced longtime union custodians with a private cleaning company at the start of the school year, though board member Jennifer McGinnis said unsanitary conditions existed before the change.
District and school board officials did not respond to requests for comment on the OSHA complaint, and teachers say they’ve had to spend additional time cleaning schools themselves while the union plans another rally to push for hiring more custodians.

A construction worker working on a road construction project was seriously injured Sept. 29 after a gravel shoulder roller tipped over, rolled into a ditch, and pinned him.
Eldridge and Long Grove fire departments, Eldridge police, Scott County deputies and Medic EMS all responded and found the man in the ditch with part of his body pinned beneath the construction equipment.
The man was airlifted by University of Iowa AirCare to the hospital with serious injuries.
His name, age and employer have not been released, and no update on his condition has been published. The stretch of 240th Street where the accident occurred is currently under a public road construction contract.