Deaths Due to Constructing Masonry Walls
Case Reports
The following Case
Reports of accidents investigated by OSHA illustrate how seemingly innocent
workplace activities can have deadly consequences.
- In inclement weather, a 34-year old worker was positioning vertical and
horizontal rebar for a cap tie beam to be poured the next day. Potent,
gusting winds caused a free standing masonry block wall to collapse, fatally
injuring the employee. Bracing and shoring could have prevented
the collapse, or lessened the impact.
- Three concrete finishers were working in the basement of a home under
construction, placing cement for the basement floor. A cement truck was
parked two feet away from the west wall, unloading 6 yards of cement into
the basement. The 2-foot area around the foundation had been backfilled
about an hour and a half before the cement finishers began their work. One
of the employees directed the cement chute, starting at the northwest corner
of the building. By the time he got to the southwest corner, the truck was
empty. Suddenly, the west wall collapsed, crushing him to death. The other
two employees were able to escape with only minor injuries.
- An employee and two co-workers were erecting 8'x35' pre-stressed concrete
wall panels. They would set the panel, then anchor the bottom, and then
unhook the panels from the crane. Three panels had already been set, and the
victim was atop the panels waiting for the welder to finish anchoring the
bottom of the third panel. The panels began to tip outward and slowly fall,
and the victim fell or jumped, landing in the path of the falling panels. He
died from the head injuries he sustained.
- The victim was a member of a crew that was erecting tilt-up wall panels
around the perimeter of the slab floor of a one-story warehouse. The last
three wall slabs were being hoisted into place with two 12-foot nylon web
slings in a basket hitch. While the second panel was suspended in
preparation for being set, it tilted in the sling and slid slightly, cutting
through one sling and partially through the other. The erection crew
scattered as it dropped, but the victim stopped momentarily to look back as
he fled the building. Just then, the upper edge of a previously set panel,
which had been dislodged by the falling panel, fell on him. He was crushed
and killed.
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