Fatal Accident Circumstances and Epidemiology (FACE) Report: Painter Dies After35-Foot Fall from Scaffold, Tennessee, November 21, 1994

摘要

A 60 year old male painter foreman died after falling from a 35 foot scaffold ata commercial painting site. The employer had been contracted to scrape, prepare, and repaint the window frames and roof eaves of a church. On the day of the accident, the victim was working from the scaffold scraping the eaves while his coworker was working from an extension ladder finishing the windows. The coworker was gathering equipment and placing them in a tool basket to be raised to the victim who was returning to the scaffold following a lunch break. The victim fell between the edge of the floor board and the outside of the scaffold, falling approximately 15 feet, striking a cross brace on the scaffold, flipping to the outside and falling an additional 20 feet. The cause of death was traumatic shock from closed head trauma, ruptured spleen, and blunt force trauma. Recommendations were made to provide adequate guarding on scaffolding and ensure its proper set up, to ensure that appropriate fall protection equipment is available and used when there is a fall danger, and that employers encourage workers to actively participate in workplace safety.