An In-depth Look at Fatal and Nonfatal Struck-by Injuries in the Construction Industry

Struck by injuries are the most common non-fatal injuries sustained by construction workers.

Among the 79.7 k construction workers who were injured in 2019, 16.6K suffered struck by injuries and 4 K suffered struck against injuries. Struck by accidents are also among the top causes of construction workers fatalities. In 2019, out of a total of 1,102 workers fatalities, 80 construction workers died after being struck by a vehicle and 70 of them died after being struck by an object or equipment.

The Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR) recently analyzed data related to these types of injuries and published the result of the study in a recent data-bulletin. Researchers at CPWR found that there was a big difference on how fatal and non-fatal struck by injuries occur. Fatal struck by injuries mostly occur when a construction worker is struck by a vehicle while non fatal struck by injuries are mostly caused by handheld objects or equipment.

Construction workers who are working in the Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction subsector are the most at risk of  being fatally struck by a vehicle

Theses workers are working on big engineering projects such as highway or damn construction. In 2019, fatalities in Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction accounted for 18.2% of all construction fatalities however while looking only at struck by fatalities, the Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction sector account for 67.5% of struck by vehicle fatalities and 27.1% of struck by object fatalities.

Non-fatal struck by injuries involved stationary objects or equipment in the majority of cases and are very often the result of a worker stepping on an object.

Handheld objects account for 37% of injuries and among them 76% of them are objects held by the worker himself

Falling objects or equipment represent more than 28% of all struck by injuries and discharged or flying objects account for almost 15% of all struck by injuries. These injuries occur most commonly among framing workers, Masonry contractors, and residential building construction workers.