New York Injury Talk Blog

According to a New York Times Report, a construction worker who was pouring concrete at a condominium hotel in SoHo fell 42 floors to his death on Monday, January 14th. A second man was also thrown from the 42nd floor, but he was caught in a safety net that extends outward from the 40th floor. Authorities claim the construction accident occurred when a wooden mold used to set the concrete collapsed. The cause of the collapse was unclear, and remained under investigation Monday by the Fire Department and the city’s Department of Buildings.

Assistant Fire Chief Thomas Galvin said the worker who died was tamping wet concrete in wood molds, constructed of plywood and two-by-four beams. The wood molds collapsed, he said, and fell from the 42nd floor to the 40th floor, leaving a large gash at the southwest corner of the top of the building. It is unclear why one man was not stopped by the safety netting or by an even wider platform that is part of the structure on the lower floor, while a 2nd man was.

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In a tragic example of what will surely become a hotly contested New York Wrongful Death case; a young boy visiting his father’s workplace was killed in Queens when the small forklift style vehicle he was trying to drive flipped over and crushed him, according to a New York Times Article. The accident occurred shortly after noon in a Ridgewood neighborhood lot used by Miron Building Supply, a building materials distributor.

Kevin Hrcka, 13 was son to Rob Hercka who had been a Hi-Lo operator for Miron Building Supply for the past 4 months. Hi-Los are often used in warehouses to lift wooden pallets with steel forks at the front of the vehicle. The machines are used to carry materials throughout the company’s facility near the border of Brooklyn and Queens.

On Saturday, January 19th Kevin came to meet his father at the Miron Building Supply facility. Two HI-Lo forklifts had been put away in a shed, although the keys were left in the ignition because the lot was scheduled to remain open until later that afternoon. Officials believe the boy’s father might have been in a locker room changing out of his work clothes, when the boy climbed into one of the machines and drove it away. Miron officials said Kevin appeared to have driven the Hi-Lo at a high speed toward the end of the lot and then tried to turn. It appeared the boy tried to jump off the vehicle before it landed on its side and pinned him beneath it. The police said Kevin was pronounced dead at the scene as a result of the New York Construction Accident.

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According to the New York Times, two brothers, Edgar and Alcides Moreno fell from the 47th floor of Solow Tower, a Manhattan building, after their scaffold collapsed beneath them. The two brothers, Edgar and Alcides Moreno, who worked as window washers together, fell from a swing scaffold, a built-in feature of the Solow Tower that is intended to let workers move the platform so window washers can reach any point on the facade. Both brothers were experienced window washers, and both had worked as window washers in high-rise buildings for over ten years.

The times relayed that, two hours before they fell, both Edgar and Alcides told José Cumbicos, their brother-in-law, that they feared a workplace injury might occur on the Solow Tower’s scaffolding, because their scaffold had a ‘mechanical problem’. In fact, according to the Times account, Alcides told his brother-in-law, the morning of the fall, that they were only reporting to work because their boss called telling them, ‘The scaffolding was fixed, come to work.’ So they both left.”

In an interview at his home, Jose indicated he only knew the brother’s boss as ‘Tony’. The Times reported that Jose said the brothers apparently trusted Tony, and that Tony reassured the bothers that the scaffold was safe. Apparently, the scaffold had been used, without incident, earlier in the week. Jose recounted that the brothers “….took every precaution when they worked.” But Jose, who is himself a window washer, added, “Something was wrong with the scaffold.”

As of last Friday, at least one investigator agreed with Jose. Another investigator said that new cables had been installed on the Solow Tower scaffold, but that it was unclear who did the work, when it was done and whether it was satisfactorily completed.

Jose related to the Times, that his brothers-in-law had also shared three other incidents with him where, just this year, there were problems with the scaffolding-one that reportedly put the scaffold totally out of commission just this last summer.

Continue reading "SCAFFOLD COLLAPSES, KILLING ONE BROTHER, AND LEAVING A SECOND BROTHER STRUGGLING FOR HIS LIFE" »

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The New York Times ran an article today that explored an unusual theory: overweight and obese people are involved in more workplace accidents than other workers. Citing a study of the records of 7,600 aluminum company employees, it found that 85 percent of those who sustained an injury were overweight or obese. This applies to one-time traumas (accidents) as well as repetitive stress injuries. The study shows that injuries and excess weight tend to occur in the same people, not that being overweight causes injuries or vice versa. However, the researchers did some interesting speculation as to why the two could be connected. One suggestion was that safety equipment fits larger people poorly. Another was that overweight people might not be in great health to begin with and could be easily tired, or could be taking medication that affects their judgment.

We're interested in anything that could drive down the rate of workplace injuries, which can be serious and life-threatening. However, we're also interested in the idea that this gives employers another incentive to discriminate against employees or potential employees on the basis of weight. Overweight people are not a specifically protected class under most civil rights legislation, but New York plaintiffs have successfully recovered for weight discrimination before, under the Americans With Disabilities Act. Despite the fact that 66 percent of Americans carry some amount of extra weight, overweight and obese people still face prejudice. They may also face discrimination in health care, as providers may assume that a weight problem translates into current or future health problems. We hope that this study doesn't add to the problem.

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An article from this week about construction accidents in Alberta, Canada, has me wondering whether Canada is as worker-friendly as many Americans think. According to an article by the Canadian Press, a storage tank collapsed at a farm tank site for Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. in Alberta. Nobody was hurt, but it was the second tank collapse at the same work site in a month -- the first one killed two workers and injured four. The tank that collapsed was reported to have fewer than half of the normal number of cables holding it up. And the article mentions that a third tank is already suspected of being on the verge of collapse! The Alberta Federation of Labor, a workers' union, has rightly called for the Canadian federal government to shut down the contractor in charge of the site, but a spokesman for the government says that's premature.

We aren't Canadian attorneys here at Wingate, Russotti & Shapiro, but we know a construction site in any country can be dangerous, because by their nature, they're full of heavy equipment, exposed wiring and other potential hazards. That's why workers wear helmets and often work under safety laws that regulate the work site's conditions. Unfortunately, as the article shows, accidents often happen anyway. Sometimes, as with one of our past construction accident clients, they happen to innocent people who just happen to be passing by. In New York, we're fortunate to have a law that allows injured workers to sue negligent companies who are responsible for their injuries while also collecting workers' compensation payments. I'm sure this is partly responsible for the excellent results we've achieved for our New York construction injury clients. Unfortunately, until Alberta -- and other provinces and states -- adopts stringent liability standards similar to New York's, contractors will probably keep putting the bottom line over worker safety.

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