Preventing Fatal Falls in the Texas Steel Construction Industry

The Texas work accident lawyers at Denena Points, PC have noticed that belief that the recession has ended has given new life to serious building projects, many of them high rise residential or commercial structures with steel skeletons. Texas was never as hard-hit as other states, and some construction has continued throughout the last few years.

But the renewed building efforts may also lead to burgeoning numbers of serious and fatal injuries in construction. National data reveals that nearly one in four fatal work accidents happen in the construction industry. Due to the dangers involved in building high-rise structures, many of the construction worker deaths occur while workers are in the process of erecting steel structures and connecting the steel support members. Our Texas work accident lawyers point out that many of the fatal accidents are falls. These falls happen when:

• Workers fall after being struck by other objects, like loads being hoisted or placed by cranes.
• Workers without adequate fall protection slip when a piece of decking gets blown off by wind or knocked off by work efforts.
• Decking that is unstable or not properly secured slips out of place when a worker steps onto it.
• Workers fail to use adequate fall protection gear or they use it or rig it incorrectly.
• Workers slip or fall while standing or walking on structural joists or beams without adequate fall protection gear.
• Workers fall because they’re not tied off properly at their workstation while welding, cutting, bolting, or joining structural components.

The Texas work accident lawyers at Denena Points, PC realize that worker deaths from falling during high-rise construction efforts often get widely publicized in the news due to the horrific nature of the accident. U.S. OSHA often investigates these accidents and uses what it learns during the investigations to try and create and promulgate rules designed to prevent further such accidents.

When erecting a tall, steel-supported structure, a new and quite narrow working surface goes up as the steel skeleton gets built up. For many of the workers, particularly those engaged in connecting the steel structural members, their work begins at the top level of the project. These are brave men and women. The anchor points other workers use for safety are frequently limited in number or nonexistent for these brave workers. The special considerations involved in building steel-supported structures make conventional worker fall protection difficult to deploy below 15 feet.

So OSHA rules include a range of regulations specifically focused on worker fall protection while engaged in the erection of tall steel structures. In part 2 of this article, our Texas work accident lawyers present some of these rules so that Texas workers will better know what to expect at a safe worksite and how to recognize an unsafe construction site.

Continue to Part 2 to learn how to help ensure proper worker fall protection at a construction site.