New York Personal Injury Attorneys BlogConstruction worker on scaffold killed by falling stone in New York
A stone fell on the head of a NYC construction worker and killed him on Monday. 51 year old Nelson Salinas from Queens was on a scaffold, repairing the facade of an Upper East Side residential building in Manhattan when the accident occurred. A delivery man saw him dangling in midair with his head covered in blood and called 911. The worker was rushed to the hospital but he couldn’t be saved.
Nelson Salinas who was employed by Vlad Restoration, was performing minor facade repair on a suspended scaffold system. He was located at the 7th floor level of the 14-story building locates at 311 E. 50th Street near Second Ave when a coping stone that may have been knocked loose by the equipment used to secure the scaffolding to the facade fell on his head. According to the Department of Buildings investigators the stone was a piece of the building’s parapet. Read more about the accident in the NY Daily News
Preventing NYC Scaffold Accidents
Scaffold accidents in New York City often occur because the scaffold wasn’t proprely installed or inspected. It is the responsibility of the employer to make sure that workers installing such devices are proprely trained to erect and install scaffolds. In order to prevent dangerous accidents, OSHA recommends workers follow clear safety steps such as:
- Inspecting the anchorage
- Making sure anchorage tiebacks are secure
- Ensuring counterweights are proprely installed
- Making sure direct connections can resist at least four time the tipping force of the scaffold
- Inspecting the support and its capacity and make sure all suspension scaffold support devices, such as outrigger beams, cornice hooks, and parapet clamps rest on surfaces capable of supporting at least 4 times the load imposed on them by the scaffold
- Making sure outrigger beams are solid and stable
- Inspecting the suspension ropes
- Making sure the hoist is properly installed
To find more about OSHA’s requirement when installing suspended scaffolds click here
Picture of the location of the fatal scaffold accident courtesy of Google Map
