Inspection Detail

Inspection: 1522750.015 - San Diego Unified School District

Inspection Information - Office: San Diego District Office

Investigation Summary

At 11:25 a.m. on Thursday, March 18, 2021, a 68-year-old employee was working as a janitor and cleaner for a city's school system. He was headed up a portable ladder to the roof of a school building roof to service an exhaust fan located on the rooftop while a coworker held the ladder. The roof was approximately 116 in. (2.95 m) high. The ladder was defective. The ladder was defective. It did not have anti-skid footing on both rails, and one rail was bent at the bottom. The employee had climbed up to about five rungs on the ladder, when he found that he could not balance himself on the ladder. The ladder was not firmly situated on the ground. The ladder fell, and with it, the employee. The employee suffered a sprain in both feet. He was treated without hospitalization. During an inspection, the employee's supervisor said that he was not at work on that day. The ladder's defective conditions of unequal lengths of the rails and the missing anti-skid footing had given rise to the unbalanced movement and thus made conditions ripe for the accident.

Keywords: Climbing on Ladder, Defective Equipment, Elderly, Engineering Controls, Fall, Fall From Elevation, Falling Object, Foot, Inappropriate Equipment, Insufficient Supervision, Janitor, Lack of Engineering Controls, Lack of Work Procedures, Ladder, Recordkeeping, Records, Roof, Sprain, Supervision, Supervisor, Work at Elevation