Inspection Detail

Inspection: 125497438 - Killarney Construction Co., Inc.

Inspection Information - Office: San Francisco District Office

Investigation Summary

At approximately 2:30 p.m. on October 20, 1998, Employee #1, a carpenter for Killarney Construction, was nailing plywood on a pitched roof. The employer had built platforms from which to work, and the foreman said he instructed Employee #1 just that day to use them. Instead, Employee #1 decided to go outside on the pitched roof. He was standing behind a plywood sheet, pushing it into place, when the board slipped down and knocked him off his feet. Employee #1 fell between 25 and 30 ft, sustaining injuries that required hospitalization. None of his eight coworkers saw the fall. Prior to the accident, Employee #1 had used a platform for four similar jobs without any complaints. A safety meeting had been held two days prior to the accident. According to the foreman, Employee #1 should have known to work from the platforms because he had been instructed to do so and because he had seen coworkers on the platforms at pervious jobs. It appears that this accident was the result of an employee-independent act. It could have been prevented if Employee #1 worked as instructed, i.e., from the platform instead of the roof.

Keywords: INSTALLING, ROOF, CARPENTER, WORK RULES, CONSTRUCTION, FALL, FALL PROTECTION, WORK PLATFORM, SLOPE