Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf is a New York Plaintiff's personal injury law firm specializing in automobile accidents, construction accidents, medical malpractice, products liability, police misconduct and all types of New York personal injury litigation.

Articles Posted in Construction Accident

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construction workers working at height in NYCAs spring is here and construction activities are booming in the city, the recent release of the NYC Department of Buildings Construction Safety report is a bleak reminder of the multiple fatalities that occurred on New York construction sites during the same season last year. After two workers fell to their death in February,  two other hard hats died in April, one from electrocution and the other from a fall. Then in May, two workers were crushed by a falling elevator cabin and one of them died while the other one was critically injured. The same month two other workers fell to their death in Long Island City and Flatbush.

After this horrible spring, the DOT organized a giant sweet of almost all construction sites in NYC, sending to the field an army of investigators and shutting down any construction site where major safety violations were discovered.  As a result  fewer fatalities were reported during the remaining months of the year with two other worker falling to their death, one in Manhattan in September and one in Gowanus in November.

The reports also confirms that after a drop of activity related to the Covid19 lockdown, construction activity in NYC increased again in 2021. A total of 168,423 construction permits were issued in 2021 compared to 147,760 in 2020. Manhattan was the borough with the highest number of permits issued (63,320)  however Queens came number one for new buildings filed with 573 applications, followed by Staten Island with 521 application.  Brooklyn had the highest number of certificates of occupancy issued (2,053) followed by Queens (1,613).

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fall prevention posterLast year, 7 out of the 9 NYC construction worker deaths reported by the Department of Buildings were caused by falls. Additionnally the DOB also reported that 194 workers were injured in fall accidents on New York City construction sites during the same period. This was a record high compared to the previous years (see previous blog). Despite increased safety training requirements for workers, fall remains the number one cause of accident deaths and injuries in the New York construction industry and nationally as well. According to the most recent statistics from the BLS 351 out of the 1,008 construction fatalities recorded nationally in 2020 were fall fatalities. Most of these accidents were preventable.

Preventing fall accidents is the reason why, every year, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in collaboration with multiple other partners involved in workplace safety such as the CPWR and NORA are organizing a National Stand Down during which employers are invited to voluntarily take a break from work and sit down with their workers to discuss or participate to activities  related to fall hazards.

Anyone can participate and every year sees more and more participants from major corporate construction companies to small contractors, including the US Army and other governmental participants. All employers  participating receive a certificate.

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Construction accident fatalities and injuries in New York City in 2021 were a little bit higher than in 2020 but lower than during the years preceding the Covid19 crisis according to the New York City Department of Buildings statistics.  The DOB only reports construction worker fatalities that are caused by  building code violations. Brooklyn and Manhattan had the most fatalities, 3 each while the other boroughs all recorded one fatality each for a total of 9 worker fatalities compared to 8 in 2020 and 11 in 2019.

Construction accident deaths NYC 2021
7 out of the 9 hard hat deaths were caused by fall and 2 of them were caused by accidents related to mechanical construction equipment failure. Despite construction workers now being required to follow safety training, fall related fatalities were at their highest since 2017. Most fall accidents are preventable. They usually occur when safety rules are not respected.

Factors in New York construction worker deaths in 2021
Almost the same number of injuries were reported to the DOB in 2021 compared to 2020. 505 workers were injured in construction accidents in New York City in 2021 compared to 502 a year earlier and 596 in 2019. Most injuries’ occurred on Manhattan construction sites (300) followed by Brooklyn (105), Bronx (48), Queens (45) and Staten Island (7).

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440 HarmanA Nassau contractor whose negligence caused the death of a 5 year old child in Brooklyn, NYC, in 2019 has been indicted on  manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, offering a false instrument for filing and falsifying business records. He is due back in court in May.

Alysson Pinto-Chauman had her skull crushed in front of her mom

The accident occurred on August 29 2019. 5 year old Alysson Pinto-Chaumana was with her mom and a group of friends standing in front of the high wall of a property located on Harman Street in Bushwick, Brooklyn when part of the wall suddenly collapsed on the toddler. Her skull was crushed in the accident. Her mom who was standing next to her witnessed the entire scene and said the vision will be engraved in her memory forever.

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using the wrong ladder can result in accidentInjuries and deaths resulting from ladder accidents are extremely common. According to the most recent CDC statistics, over the last decade, 81% of fall injuries treated in American ERs were resulting from falls from ladders. Ladders were also involved in 43% of all fall fatalities.  Thousands of people are injured and hundreds are dying every year in ladder accidents. Year after year, our construction accident attorneys are helping construction workers injured in ladder accidents getting compensated for their injuries. Most of the time, construction workers fall from ladders because they are not provided with the adequate ladders to perform the task. One of our recent clients was a carpenter who was standing on a 6-foot A-frame ladder while pinning studs above his head. The ladder that was provided to him was not proper for the work he was doing. As the carpenter was working, the ladder kicked out and the man fell. He suffered a spine injury and had to undergo a microdiscectomy to his lumbar spine. Our attorneys were able to obtain a $1.250 million settlement on his behalf.

In New York, the law requires that workers using ladders be provided with the adequate equipment to execute the task and that ladders are not defectively maintained, placed or operated. However despite that law, many negligent contractors continue to provide workers with inadequate, broken or old ladders that put them at risk of dangerous accidents.

Ladder accidents are not only common on construction sites but also at home. From changing a smoke alarm, to cleaning gutters, home owners also use ladders and get injured frequently.

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drone inspection can prevent accidentsRecent studies found that drones can be helpful in identifying hazards and preventing workers getting injured or killed in construction accidents.  The Center for Construction Research and Training is hosting a free webinar on Wednesday March 23 about drones in construction and specifically how they can help make construction sites safer. The webinar will be presented by the authors of 3 studies in this field:

  1. Rod Handy, MBA, Ph.D., CIH, University of Utah  who is the lead author of a study entitled Nebulizer-retrofitted drone deployment at residential construction sites will explain how water spraying drones can reduce exposure to air pollution and heat stress and as a result prevent dangerous illnesses
  2. Masoud Gheisari, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, M.E. Rinker, Sr. School of Construction Management, University of Florida who is the lead author of Using unmanned aerial systems for automated fall hazard monitoring in high-rise construction will share how drone technology can help identifying hazards and safety issues on construction sites especially the most common and dangerous ones that are related to falls. His study focuses on the monitoring of guardrails near unprotected edges and openings in a high rise construction site. The author developed an automated fall hazard recognition system that could facilitate the recognition of guardrails in high rise construction projects.
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https://www.newyorkpersonalinjuryattorneysblog.com/wp-admin/post-new.phpBuilding owners, contractors or other construction professionals that do not respect construction safety rules put workers and civilians at risk of accidents. To prevent misconduct, the NYC Department of Buildings conducts thousands of inspections and bad actors are sanctioned. A list of the main sanctions is published monthly by the DOB. What comes out of the January DOB Enforcement Action Bulletin is that sadly, in New York City, endangering the life of construction workers comes at a much cheaper price tag than displaying advertising in illegal locations or being an illegal Airbnb host.

Here are the highest penalties issued by the NYC Department of Buildings in January:

  • The owner of a two-family building located at 29 Marconi Place in Brooklyn received the highest fine with a total of $74,250 in penalties.  After a fire erupted on location, a DOB investigation found that the owner had illegally converted the property to add 4 single-room occupancy units. The construction work was effectuated without a permit and the owner failed to comply with previous orders from the DOB to legalize the conditions at the property.
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NYC construction workers have a high risk of fatalities Construction worker deaths in New York City and New York State represented respectively 22% and 24% of all worker deaths in the city and in the State in 2020 according to the annual report “Deadly Skyline” recently published by NYCOSH. The percentage is higher than the 21% rate recorded at the national level.

While less workers died in 2020 in NY and and NYC, data are difficult to compare as many construction sites shut down during the lock down. 41 construction workers died in accidents in New York State in 2020 compared to 55 in 2019. Among them, 13 died on New York City construction sites in 2020 compared to 24 in 2019.

Fatality rate is a better measure of how dangerous the work places are: In New York State, the construction workers fatality rate was 11.1 per 100,000 workers in 2020 compared to 10.2 in 2019. This indicates that work conditions were more dangerous for workers in 2020 than in 2019 in New York State. In New York City, the fatality rate declined from 11.6 to 7 per 100.000 which is quite an improvement and an indication that the recent measures taken by the city to make construction sites safer may work. Over the last few years, the budget for the New York City Department of Building has been increasing and so did the number of employees working on safety legislation and inspections.

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OSHA logoAfter a hard hat fatally fell 60 feet during demolition work on one of its construction sites, Richmond Construction, based in Queens, NYC, was hit by a $374,603 OSHA fine. This is the second highest OSHA fine for the last quarter of  2021.

Last May, a 49 year old worker hired by Richmond Construction was working on the demolition of the Flatbush Bank Building in Brooklyn. He had just finished breaking apart a section of the roof with a jackhammer and was  walking on the top of the exposed side when a piece of concrete on which he was standing broke apart. The man fell 60 feet down to the ground and died. The worker was not using proper safety equipment and had no training to execute such a dangerous job.

The OSHA investigators found that Richmond Construction failed to provide lifesaving fall protection and did not train employees to recognize and avoid fall hazards. The contractor was cited for 9 willful, repeat and serious violations including:

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safety on construction site is keySome construction workers, especially those working on emergency repairs are required to work for long period of time in sub-zero temperatures and as a result they might suffer cold related illnesses and injuries such as Hypothermia, Frostbite, Trench Foot and Chilblains.

How to prevent cold illnesses?

  • The most important way to prevent cold illnesses is to wear appropriate clothing that are made for cold, wet and windy conditions. Dressing with layers of loose fitting clothes that can be adjusted depending on the outside temperature and always wearing a hat that covers ears and if necessary a knit mask. Waterproof and insulated gloves as well as socks and waterproof and insulated shoes that keep the body dry are necessary when working outside for a long time. Additionnally. it is always a good idea to bring extra clothes to change  in cases clothes get wet.
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