TampaBays10.com Details Construction Site Fall To Death

TampaBays10.com is breaking the news of a tragic construction site death in Southwest Florida. Sadly, it is a story of preventable mistakes I have heard before.

Construction worker falls to death in Estero

Southwest Florida authorities say a construction worker fell 21 stories to his death through a ventilation shaft at a high-rise work site.

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office says 24-year-old Jose Rojas of Naples was not wearing a safety harness when he fell to his death yesterday. Officials believe he did have a rope around his waist.

Rojas was on the top floor of the south tower of the a high-rise, pouring concrete for the next floor.

One of the three large cranes on the site collided with another crane, causing it to knock the support beam out from Rojas’ platform and sending him down the shaft.

Both the general contractor and the subcontractor at the site have been cited and fined for prior safety violations on other jobs.

Ironically, Workers’ Comp Insider just blogged on the latest workers’ fatality statistics and parts of its article are related to this sad death.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has issued its report on workplace fatalities for 2005. The total number of deaths (5,702) is down a fraction from the previous year’s 5,764.

Here’s what the data tells us:

– In construction, falls kill more people than anything else. Laborers die at higher rates than workers in the other trades.
– Men comprise 54% of the workplace and 93% of the fatalities.
– Despite the [Department of Labor] secretary’s reassurances, 917 Hispanics and Latinos died at work in 2005. That’s 16 per cent of the fatalities for a group that comprises about 13 per cent of the workforce.
– Among more common occupations, drivers/sales/trucking is the most dangerous, followed by agricultural workers and construction laborers.

There are a couple of facts revealed in the report by Channel 10 which raise the possibility of a wrongful death claim in addition to the benefits to be obtained under Workers’ Compensation. One is the fact that a crane’s operation caused the accident. The compensation normally available to the family of a worker killed on the job is not just, in my opinion. Because of this it is necessary to conduct a very thorough investigation in an effort to develop a path to a recovery against someone other than the employer under Workers’ Compensation.

TampaBays10.com is breaking the news of a tragic construction site death in Southwest Florida. Sadly, it is a story of preventable mistakes I have heard before.

Construction worker falls to death in Estero

Southwest Florida authorities say a construction worker fell 21 stories to his death through a ventilation shaft at a high-rise work site.

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office says 24-year-old Jose Rojas of Naples was not wearing a safety harness when he fell to his death yesterday. Officials believe he did have a rope around his waist.

Rojas was on the top floor of the south tower of the a high-rise, pouring concrete for the next floor.

One of the three large cranes on the site collided with another crane, causing it to knock the support beam out from Rojas’ platform and sending him down the shaft.

Both the general contractor and the subcontractor at the site have been cited and fined for prior safety violations on other jobs.

Ironically, Workers’ Comp Insider just blogged on the latest workers’ fatality statistics and parts of its article are related to this sad death.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has issued its report on workplace fatalities for 2005. The total number of deaths (5,702) is down a fraction from the previous year’s 5,764.

Here’s what the data tells us:

– In construction, falls kill more people than anything else. Laborers die at higher rates than workers in the other trades.
– Men comprise 54% of the workplace and 93% of the fatalities.
– Despite the [Department of Labor] secretary’s reassurances, 917 Hispanics and Latinos died at work in 2005. That’s 16 per cent of the fatalities for a group that comprises about 13 per cent of the workforce.
– Among more common occupations, drivers/sales/trucking is the most dangerous, followed by agricultural workers and construction laborers.

There are a couple of facts revealed in the report by Channel 10 which raise the possibility of a wrongful death claim in addition to the benefits to be obtained under Workers’ Compensation. One is the fact that a crane’s operation caused the accident. The compensation normally available to the family of a worker killed on the job is not just, in my opinion. Because of this it is necessary to conduct a very thorough investigation in an effort to develop a path to a recovery against someone other than the employer under Workers’ Compensation.