Inspection Detail

Inspection: 300570124 - Porta-Painting, Inc.

Inspection Information - Office: Madison Area Office

Investigation Summary

Employee #1 was in a shop-fabricated manbasket that had been partially lowered into a 60 ft tall filtration tower using a crane and single-point suspension scaffold. The top of the basket was attached by a shackle to a 1-ton Wright overhead crane. This crane was used by the production crew to lift cloth filters out of the tower and had a predetermined and limited range of lift. Employee #1 and his supervisor had been briefed by the host company's maintenance supervisor to use a specific chain hoist to lower the work basket into the tower. They were also told that a safety rope must be attached to the basket and anchored at a fixed point to the building structure. Several days after the briefing, Employee #1 and a coworker used the crane instead of the chain hoist while sand blasting. They did not encounter any problems, nor did they attach a safety rope during this operation. While painting the interior of the tower, they again used the overhead crane without employing a safety rope. The coworker was operating the crane's pendant controls when Employee #1 asked to be lowered further down. As the coworker did this, the wire rope reached its maximum length and came off the spool. The basket dropped approximately 20 ft but stopped short of falling the entire depth of the tower because the coupling at the wire rope end became stuck in the sheave. Employee #1 sustained severe lacerations when his arm struck against a piece of metal attached to the interior of the working basket.

Keywords: HOISTING MECHANISM, SAFETY CONTROL LINE, WORK RULES, CONSTRUCTION, LACERATION, OVERHEAD CRANE, FALL, FALL PROTECTION, ARM, SUSPENSION STRAND