New York Construction Accident & Safety News

A strange construction accident happened this week after a hammer was knocked loose from a workman’s belt and fell 18 stories, crashing into the window of a cab below. The work being done on the Goldman Sachs tower in lower Manhattan, has seen it’s share of mishaps along the way.

Last May, a 30-inch square sheet of steel flew off the unlucky 18th floor and landed in the outfield grass during a Little League game.

Five months earlier, an architect working in a trailer adjoining the nascent skyscraper was paralyzed below the waist by 7 tons of falling steel after a nylon sling failed on the 43-story tower.

A stop work order was issued from the city on the building until further investigation over the accident can take place.

It’s been just over one year since a deadly crane collapse on the east side of midtown Manhattan, and some from the community gathered at the spot to pay their respects to those who passed away in the accident. Residents in the area wanted to make sure they brought the situation to light so that they don’t have to see another accident happen in the city again.
 

"The community has said enough is enough - safety has to come before speed," said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, at the vigil at 305 E. 50th St. "We’re not where we have to get to (but) we were able to make great gains. We will never tolerate one day where we see a crane breezy in the wind and think that’s OK."

The crane toppled from a 19-story building on East 51st Street and leveled a four-story town house. The seven victims included construction workers Brad Cohen, 54, from Farmingdale and Santino Gallone, 37, of Bellmore.

In the last year, the City Council has passed 12 laws concerning crane safety, including tougher rules on using the nylon straps that secure cranes. A recent city investigation found that the improperly rigged 11,000-pound steel brace on the tower crane fell after workers had attached only four of eight protective nylon slings.

Will the down economy cause more construction accidents as people try to work faster and with less experience? The Long Island Business News reports on the issue that is cropping up at construction sites around the area. But is it true? Will people cut corners for money and put safety at risk?

One contractor who asked not to be identified said many builders won’t cut corners to save money. He said firms with long, reputable histories aren’t likely to suddenly skimp.

“There are always people who cut corners,” said the contractor. “Will people cheat when times get tough? Some people will never cheat.”

Whether or not the weak economy leads to corner cutting, some worry it could lead to more false claims. One Long Island contractor who asked not to be identified said he’s seen a surge in workers’ compensation claims among people about to be laid off.

“In that short period of time before they think they’re going to be downsized, they submit a report that they hurt themselves on the job,” the contractor said. “They file a report saying they pulled a muscle. Most employers slough it off. Then they [the workers] get laid off.”

The New York Times reports on corruption within the construction industry in New York City, especially as it pertains to cranes. Crane construction accidents were a big problem in the city last year, as multiple deaths resulted from poor crane regulations. The news of corruption comes as crane regulations are being implemented from the Buildings Commission.

After two fatal tower crane accidents last year, New York City instituted a series of reforms to increase safety and oversight in the construction industry, including requiring a 30-hour class for crane operators and other workers on the safest way to raise and lower a tower crane.

But some sessions of the city-mandated class are being taught by a union official who has admitted that he helped unqualified people, including organized crime figures, get into his union, according to sworn testimony and investigative reports. He and other union officials helped some of those men secure licenses to operate smaller cranes at construction sites across the city, the testimony and the reports say.

High winds that blew through with a storm last week have been blamed for causing the death of a man on a construction site in New York City. A wall on a job site was blown over and killed construction worker Robert L. McGee on Staten Island. The Buildings Department is looking into the incident however because witnesses claim the wall may not have had the proper safety restraints in the first place.
 

The city’s Buildings Department said the accident occurred at 8:12 a.m., and the buildings commissioner, Robert D. LiMandri, who visited the site, said investigators would focus on whether the job was done according to safety requirements.

“They are looking into how the wall was built and whether it was built according to code,” said Tony Sclafani, a Buildings Department spokesman. He said three stop-work orders had been issued at the job site; construction permits were first issued there in August 2007. Investigators from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration were also at the site on Thursday.

A vigil was held last week in the Southampton Village are of Long Island for a construction worker who had been killed when a concrete wall collapsed on him. An inspection of the area after the accident found that the wall that fell on the worker was not properly supported.

"Unless every worker can work safely, then no worker can work safely," Suffolk Legislature Deputy Presiding Officer Vivian Viloria-Fisher (D-Setauket) told the gathering, speaking first in English and then in Spanish. "We have to be concerned that everyone who goes out to do a day’s work, who also is a human being, is protected."

Sunday’s vigil was sponsored by the Immigrant Worker Occupational Health and Safety Committee of the Workplace Project and the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, two groups active in lobbying for worker safety.

The Buildings Department in New York City has been undertaking quite an overhaul after two major construction accidents involving crane collapses. Now the new buildings commissioner, Robert LiMandri, has begun to lay out his plan for sweeping reforms.

On Tuesday, at the annual Build Safe New York conference, Mr. LiMandri announced a 41-point plan to overhaul how “high-rise construction” is regulated and carried out in New York City. The changes result from a $4 million High-Risk Construction Oversight review of crane, hoist, excavation and concrete operations, begun last year, which involved 30 engineering experts from CTL Engineering and Construction Technology Consultants.

The review included visits to nearly 600 job sites; 12 outreach meetings with more than 95 organizations; and Buildings Department safety conferences with crane manufacturers and building officials from cities around the world.

“This groundbreaking study is the type of critical evaluation that is necessary to ensure a new standard of safety is implemented across the city, one that the public demands and deserves,” Mr. LiMandri said in a statement. “The city’s economy depends on construction, and New Yorkers are depending on us to make that construction safe. After an exhaustive review of high-risk construction, we identified 41 specific ways that will help prevent accidents and raise accountability across the board.”

The New York City Buildings Department has cited yet another contractor for a construction accident that occurred down at ground zero. Newsday.com has more details:

A construction worker has broken his leg in an accident at a toxic ground zero tower where two firefighters were killed over a year ago.

The accident happened last week in the basement level of the former Deutsche Bank tower, where workers were removing debris. Officials say an excavator struck the LVI Environmental Services worker and he broke his right leg.

New York City’s Buildings Department cited the contractor for not providing enough shoring or netting for fall protection. The accident is the most serious at the site since LVI took over the job cleaning debris and dismantling the building, which was badly damaged on Sept. 11.

The city of New York is putting in more strict guidelines for construction work in the city, and it seems to be resulting in a more vigilant Buildings Commission. Newsday.com reports on the new rules and the early results:

In June, the Council and Bloomberg laid out a 15-point legislative package for stricter enforcement and regulations for crane operations and to improve overall safety at construction sites citywide.

The package led to a series of requirements, including mandatory safety training for tower crane workers, requiring mandatory submission of detailed rigging plans and banning the use of nylon slings to secure tower cranes. Nylon slings were cited as a cause in one of the crane collapses.

Buildings Department Commissioner Robert LiMandri said yesterday that since the March 15 collapse, his department issued more than 400 stop-work orders in 2008, or more than double the previous year. The city in May also added $5.3 million to the Buildings Department budget to fund dozens of new positions for oversight and enforcing construction safety requirements.

The district attorney of New York City has brought homicide charges up against William Rapetti, owner of a rigging company that was responsible for a construction accident and seven deaths earlier this year. The 19 story tower crane fell while workers were trying to lengthen it.

Mr. Rapetti and the firm were charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, a person familiar with the indictment who wasn’t authorized to announce the charges said on condition of anonymity.

Mr. Rapetti’s company in Massapequa Park was one of three contractors fined over $300,000 by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for safety violations stemming from the collapse.

The agency said Mr. Rapetti had failed to comply with the crane manufacturer’s specifications when erecting and raising the steel tower, and didn’t provide enough safety protection to keep workers from falling.