Roofing contractors share how they handled job-site fatalities

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.professionalroofing.net/article.aspx?A_ID=1243

by Ashley St. John

Charles De Gaulle once said: "Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself. He imposes his own stamp of action, takes responsibility for it, makes it his own."

In the roofing industry, opportunities for crisis—in the form of employee injuries or fatalities—present themselves more often than in most other industries. According to U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Bureau of Labor Statistics Data, 100 roofing workers were killed in occupation-related incidents during 2006, 80 from falls alone.

If you are fortunate, you have never had to manage the chaos that ensues following a job-site fatality. But if you have had the misfortune of experiencing a fatality, you likely are already aware of how tempting it can be to hide from the media, the employee's family and the public. However, in times of crisis, it is important you take responsibility. Establishing a crisis-management plan ahead of time can help simplify the complicated process that follows a job-site fatality or injury, and it can help reduce the risk of having penalties and civil suits imposed on your company.

Professional Roofing spoke with two roofing contractors who shared their experiences with employee injuries and fatalities and what they learned.

A fatal fall

On Sept. 15, 2005, at 5:30 a.m., a crew from CRS of Monroe Inc., Monroe, N.C., arrived at a job site in a small town in southern Georgia. The foreman dropped the crew off at the job site and went to a nearby gas station to get gas and ice for the day. In the early morning darkness, the crew members began putting on their work boots and setting up lights on the rooftop.

One crew member, 28-year-old Marcelino Lopez, had started working for CRS of Monroe two weeks earlier. While the rest of the crew was getting ready, he began laying insulation tape on the roof though he had not been directed to begin work. In the darkness, he stepped outside of the warning line and fell 26 feet to the ground below.

FULL story at link.