Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf is a New York Plaintiff's personal injury law firm specializing in automobile accidents, construction accidents, medical malpractice, products liability, police misconduct and all types of New York personal injury litigation.

Articles Posted in Construction Accident

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A window washer died on Monday in New York. The 57 year old worker was cleaning the windows of a building in the Upper East Side located on East 81st Street between Lexington and Park Ave. He fell off a third-story ledge and died. In New York Window Washers are protected under both Section 240 and Section 202 of the New York State Labor Law. For a discussion of Section 240 see our New York Construction Accident page. Section 202 known as The Window Washers Law provides that ” The owner, lessee, agent and manager of every public building and every contractor involved shall provide such safe means for the cleaning of the windows and of exterior surfaces of such building as may be required and approved by the board of standards and appeals.” As a practical matter most window washing accidents are covered by section 240 which is a self executing statute which does not require violation of a provision of The Industrial Code and to which comparative negligence does not apply.

 

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liftA hydraulic crane crashed into a building in New York yesterday. The accident occurred at 133 Essex Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Witnesses living in the neighborhood told the NY Daily News that they had been worrying about the crane for a few days. They mentioned that the crane was “funny looking”. Before crashing into a window of the building’s 6th floor the crane slowly tipped for two hours. After the accident, the FDNY received a request from the DOB to conduct a structural stability inspection. The results show the stability of the building was satisfactory but officials still ordered tenants from the top floors to evacuate their apartments.

The NYC Department of Building issued a stop work order for the construction site. In the past the construction site was hit with several complaints and violations. They have all been resolved or dismissed with the exception of a violation related to the elevator. The contractor,  Jepol Construction, was also hit with a violation for “failure to safeguard the site”.

Picture courtesy of Wikipedia shows the type of crane that crashed into the building

 

 

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printing houseA construction worker died after a scaffolding plank fell on his head at a New York construction site. 32 year old Luis Mata, was dismantling scaffolding at the Printing House Luxury Condos on Hudson Street when one of the planks became loose and fell 10 stories on his head. The construction worker was wearing a hard hat but the impact was so strong that he suffered severe head and neck injuries. He later died from his injuries at the hospital. Luis Mata was a non union worker from Mexico. He was living with his uncle in Westchester County. He was supporting his mom in Mexico.

Unfortunately we are seeing an increasing number of construction site accidents on non union jobs, as a result of contractors not implementing proper safety measures.

Following the accident, the NYC Department of Building issued a partial stop work order on the building. DOB records for the building located at 421 Hudson Street show that at the time of the fatal accident, the building had 6 open ECB violations including two class 2 and two class 1 violations  as well as 8 DOB violations.

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KingsbrookA hard hat worker suffered critical injury in a NYC construction accident yesterday. A construction truck hit a suspended cable line causing a pole to fall, knocking down the construction worker into a 15 foot trench. The accident happened at the corner of East 49th Street and Rutland Road in Brownsville, next to the Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center.

When Brian Yokers, one the ER doctors at the Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, heard about a worker in cardiac arrest at the construction site next to the hospital he ran out to the construction site and followed the crowd to the trench. The worker was still breathing when he arrived. He stepped down the ladder into the trench to help the worker.  He held his head stable to prevent a spinal cord injury until the FDNY arrived with a neck brace. The worker was then placed on a backboard and hoisted out of the trench. He was then transported to the Kings County Hospital.

Kudos to Brian Yokers!

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safety culture constructionConstruction workers have a high risk of getting injured or even dying in an accident while at work. Construction accidents often happen when negligent contractors try to save time or money and put profit ahead of their own workers safety. A new study looking at safety practices among contractors shows that increased safety on construction sites indeed increases Return on Investment (ROI) and attracts and retains more talented hard hats. The recently released study “Building a Safety Culture SmartMarket Report” was produced by the Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR) and United Rental, a construction equipment rental company.

For the study, Dodge Data & Analytics analyzed 254 American contractors using 33 indicators of safety culture in the construction industry. They found that approximately one third of the contractors were promoting a high safety culture standard in their day to day business and were investing heavily in safety management practices. Another third were somewhat promoting safety culture in their company. The last third were contractors who didn’t have much interest about safety culture and didn’t invest much in it.

The study shows that contractors who invested the most in workers safety reported less injuries, improved their projects quality, increased their projects ROI, had a lower staff turnover and were able to attract staff more easily than contractors who didn’t invest in workers safety.

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carlos monkayoLast year Carlos Moncayo died in a construction accident in New York. Moncaya was working on a construction site located at 9-19 Ninth Ave in the meatpacking district in Manhattan where the old Pastis restaurant was turned into a Restoration Hardware Store. The 22 year old construction worker was buried in a pit after unstable soil gave way. The accident was fully preventable. An hour before it happened an inspector warned the two construction site supervisors, Alfonso Prestia and Wilmer Cuerva that the 13 foot deep pit wasn’t proprely re-enforced and that nobody should get in the trench. Both men ignored the warning. An hour later the inspector saw 4 men in the pit and rushed again to the two supervisors to urge them to halt work. Two hours later the supervisors finally decided to call the crew out of the pit but it was too late. The trench collapsed and Moncaya died. The two supervisors were charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment. According to recent court papers, the two supervisors are now blaming each other for the fatal construction accident. Prestia says that he wanted to fire the foremen who created the unsafe conditions but that Cuevas always opposed it. Read more in the NY Daily News 

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Harlem Valley Psychiatric Hospital

Picture source: Google Map

A NY developer who exposed construction workers to lead and asbestos hazard during the renovation and the clean up of an abandoned psychiatric hospital Upstate New York  settled with the US Labor Department. As part of the settlement, the developer committed to enhance safeguard for the employees renovating the site and pay a $700k fine.

Dover Greens LLC, formerly known as Olivet Management LLC was cited in 2014 for 45 willfull violations after the company knowingly exposed its own construction workers and the construction workers hired by 13 other contractors  to lead and asbestos hazard while cleaning and  renovating the former Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center in Dover Plains.

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1229 45th streetA 21 year old worker died in a construction accident in Brooklyn NYC. Yesterday afternoon Alex Santizo from Queens was working on the construction site of a two-family townhouse on 45th street near 12th Ave in Borough Park, Brooklyn. He was on the second floor of the house when the roof collapsed. Santizo was hit by debris then he tumbled into an airshaft and landed two stories below in the basement.  The young man died from his injuries at the hospital. Records from the New York City DOB indicate that the building located at 1229 45th street had a total of 11 complaints that all had been resolved before the accident happened. The construction site was also the subject of 13 violations with 7 of them still open.  Read more in the NY Daily News 

Picture source: Google map

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Tappan Zee Bridge3 men died after their tugboat crashed into a barge at a Tappan Zee Bridge construction site on Saturday morning.

63 year old Paul Amon from New Jersey, 29 year old Timothy Conklin from Long Island and 56 year old Harry Hernandez from Staten Island were the 3 crew members of the  tugboat “Specialist” that sank Saturday morning after crashing into a stationary construction barge belonging to Tappan Zee Constructors . The rescuers were able to find the bodies of Amon and Conklin. Searches to find Hernandez who is presumed dead were suspended sunday night according to The Associated Press.

The accident happened Saturday morning. The “Specialist” was one of three tugboats that were pushing a crane barge from Albany to New Jersey. The “Specialist” was located at the right of the barge while the second tugboat was on the left and the third one in the back. As they arrived at the Tappan Zee Bridge construction site, the “Specialist” hit a stationary construction barge. Before the accident happened, the crew sent a radio message saying “”We are too close. We have to move left,” but it was too late. The tugboat sank 40 feet within minutes with the 3 men on board. The tugboat also leaked into the Hudson some of the 5000 gallons of fuel that were on board at the time of the accident.

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A woman is loaded into an air ambulance that landed on Ski Hill Rd. after a head-on crash near Lifford Rd. on Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011. She was flown to Toronto's Sunnybrook hospital with serious, life-threatening injuries. Another woman was also airlifted to the same hospital with serious injuries. JASON BAIN/THE LINDSAY POST/QMI AGENCY

Personal injury attorneys representing construction workers that have been injured at work understand too well the economic consequences of such accidents. When a worker is injured he will not only have direct costs such as medical expenses but also indirect ones such as lost wages and fringe benefits as well as lost home productivity.

A recent study published by the American Journal of Industrial Medicine provides an analysis of the economic consequences of workplace injuries in the United States.  The authors of the study , Xiuwen Sue Dong DrPH1,*, Xuanwen Wang PhD1, Julie A. Largay MPH1 and Rosemary Sokas MD, MOH2   estimated that in 2007, the total of the direct and indirect costs of all reported work injuries in the US cost $250 billion, higher than the $219 million spent on cancer. Worker’s compensation covers an average 44.5% of the direct medical costs but this amount represents only 20.7% of the total costs. The difference is being  shifted onto the workers and their families, insurance carriers and the government.

The study finds that following an injury, an injured worker’s family will suffer income loss because of the lost wages and his or her disability. The study also shows that Union workers are better protected in case of an accident and will suffer a moderate income loss compared to a non union worker who suffers the same work injury. Income disparity will persist in the long term.

 

 

 

 

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