Posts tagged "workplace injuries"

A construction disaster killed at four Miami workers last week and injured seven more. For reasons that remain unclear pending an investigation, a five-story parking garage suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed.

The construction accident has attracted national news as rescuers worked around the clock to try to find a fourth missing worker. Two construction workers died immediately after the ramp came down and a third died at a local hospital after spending 13 hours trapped under the rubble. Yesterday, search crews found the body of a fourth victim. Like many construction accidents here in California and around the country, these bereaved families may have wrongful death claims.

As discussed in the previous post, ProPublica recently did another in-depth story about the issue of contractor safety on cell tower work sites as part of an ongoing investigation by journalists. The newest article tells the story of a 43-year-old worker who died after an antenna fell on his head on a work site. The antenna broke off a faulty rope while he and other workers walked below fellow workers without hard hats on their way to a lunch break.

The personal injury lawsuit filed by a co-worker and one of the deceased worker's family members sought to figure out whom would be held responsible for the negligence on the site and the death of the subcontractor, but these were difficult things to sort out, as detailed by ProPublica.

As discussed in previous posts, contractors who work on cell towers can face dangerous workplaces, and it is difficult to figure out who to hold responsible after an injury or death on a cell tower work site. This is because often these contractors are a few times removed from the cell phone company that ordered and uses the site.

Cell phone companies hire a contractor to do the work on the cell tower site and these contractors, in turn, hire contractors who may do the work or hire another company to provide the workers.

In the end, any subcontractor who gets hurt or dies likely worked for a company other than the cell phone company. The workers have few rights and safety rules and equipment to keep them safe because they may work as contractors for a small company with few resources and no big company has taken the responsibility to keep them safe.

As discussed in the previous post, a recent investigative story by ProPublica and PBS Frontline looked into the dangers associated with working on cellphone service towers. These dangerous jobs are often contracted out and contracted out by contractors so that the work is done by subcontractors a few times removed from cellphone companies. This means that it is difficult to determine who to hold accountable when a tower climber is injured or killed on the job.

Because consumer demand is high for faster cellphone service, the time pressure is great for cellphone companies and the subcontractors who work on the towers. Many times this time pressure leads to drowsy and fatigued workers cutting corners to save time, such as free-climbing rather than strapping into a harness. The fact that the work gets filtered through many middlemen means that subcontractors try to cut costs where possible, which means that safety equipment may not be up to par and a job may not have enough workers.

Often subcontractors are used for dangerous jobs in an effort by companies to reduce their responsibility for ensuring safety and their financial risk should there be an on-the-job accident. PBS Frontline and ProPublica ran an investigative story last night that looks into the dangers of working on cellphone service towers.

These jobs have increased as the demand for faster cellphone service has grown in the U.S. These jobs are often subcontracted out through many levels so that a cellphone company may be three times removed from a worker that is actually climbing a 150-foot tower. Between 2003 and 2011, 50 workers have died while climbing towers. It can be difficult to hold anyone accountable following a cell tower death because so many parties are involved in the climber's employment.

According to the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, workplaces should incorporate systems to manage fatigue risks for employees in order to reduce fatigue-related injuries and improve safety in the workplace.

Around 38 percent of workers in the United States suffer the symptoms of fatigue, according to the ACOEM. Fatigue can mean lack of energy, tiredness and weariness. It is connected with multiple physical and psychological illnesses. Fatigue leads to decreased alertness, slower reaction time, poor judgment and diminished decision-making skills, distraction and loss of vigilance and awareness during critical moments on the job.

As discussed in the previous post, the state of California recently settled a lawsuit with the California-based maker of the salon product, Brazilian Blowout. The product straightens hair and eliminates frizz, but it also contains unacceptable levels of the known cancer-causing chemical, formaldehyde. The formaldehyde is released into the air and breathed when the product is heated.

California sued the company because the products had been labeled as formaldehyde free. The FDA had written letters to the company telling them to properly label their products, but they were not able to go so far as to pull products off shelves and it is still being used in salons. Many people are pushing for the FDA to similarly ban beauty products containing formaldehyde.

The salon product Brazilian Blowout has been found by the FDA to contain unacceptable levels of formaldehyde, which is a known cancer-causing chemical. The product is supposed to make hair straight and free of frizz -- kind of the opposite of a perm. It has soared in popularity in the last couple of years and continues to be popular even after word got out that the products contained known carcinogens.

One major problem is that women used the product before it was labeled correctly. The products were labeled as "formaldehyde-free" or safe, which the FDA disputed. The state of California sued a California-based maker of Brazilian Blowout for this deceptive advertising. A settlement was recently reached in which the company agreed to pay $600,000 in fines and fees, and change the information on their website significantly.

The Hawthorne California Police Department suffered its first-ever loss of an officer on duty recently. The officer was killed in a motorcycle accident the Thursday before Memorial Day.

According to the police report, the officer was riding his motorcycle in the funeral procession of a Manhattan Beach police officer who had recently died of cancer. During the procession, he collided with another motorcycle officer from the El Segundo Police Department. Witnesses at the scene stated that both officers appeared to be traveling fast.

Being so close to Halloween, CareerCast.com released a list of the top 10 scariest jobs. The rankings are based on the severity of the phobias associated with the jobs. The jobs they list are scary for a variety of reasons, but can be broken down in two categories: jobs that cause anxiety and jobs that are very physically dangerous and have a high risk of work-related injury.

The CareerCast Rankings are:

1. Forensic Entomologist (Think CSI with creeping and crawling insects.)
2. Miner (And other jobs that require working below ground in cramped spaces.)
3. Broadcast Tower Technician (And other jobs that require working at great heights.)
4. Bomb Squad Technician (And other jobs that have a risk of death like soldier, firefighters, etc.)
5. Field Epidemiologist (And surgeons, coroners, etc.)
6. Crime Scene Decontamination Technician (And toxic waste cleanup technicians.)
7. Pharmaceutical Trial Subject (Volunteering to be a human guinea pig cannot be all that pleasant of a vocation.)
8. Bush Pilot (And test pilots, stunt pilots, crop duster pilots, etc.)
9. Cryonics Technician (And other jobs that require dealing with dead bodies like morticians, embalmers, etc.)
10. Comedian (And other jobs that require public speaking.)

Even though these jobs tend to face the highest risks, they are not the only jobs that come with the risk of a workplace injury.