None of us had ever witnessed anything like this. Our lighthearted breakfast antics earlier that morning were now in the distant past. The accident next door brought new perspective to the inherent dangers ever present at our daily workplace. This drove home the importance of constant vigilance about safety and how a quick turn of events can lead to serious injury.
What happened? Several trades had been working at the project on the adjacent lot, but most had departed except for a laborer and two roofers. Earlier the full roofing crew had rolled out felt paper and stocked the roof with hand-split cedar shakes.
On one large plane of the roof area above the living room, cutouts for several 3×3 skylights had been rolled over with several courses of felt paper. The skylight units were not yet on the roof and would be installed later, after curbs were built and flashing was installed. The roofing crew foreman had been instructed by the contractor to dry-in the house post haste. The actual installation of the finished roofing would not begin for several days, and he did not want any additional moisture invading the home.
In their hurry to follow those instructions, the roofers had rolled out and stapled down the felt to get the project dried in. When the 45-square roof area was done, the majority of the crew departed, leaving two crew members behind to install flashing and metal drip edge around the soffit perimeter. Those two roofers had nearly completed the drip edge and now wanted to install the fireplace flashing at the gable end of the home. The more experienced member of the remaining crew had already bent and prepped all of his step flashing for the fireplace.
“Hey Larry, it’s still early, and we’ve only got those two small pieces of drip edge to complete near the back portion roof,” said Adam, “If we keep a move-on, we can knock out that fireplace flashing quickly and still have time to head out to the lake for a little fishing.” “Let’s get it done,” Larry shot back. As he and his coworker walked across the upper area of the roof plane, several feet below the ridgeline, both workmen had their hands filled with flashing, tar, and silicone tubes. They were in a hurry.
Larry was walking in front of Adam and stepped right through the felt and fell more than 22 feet onto the living room slab floor. It was like falling down a vertical mine shaft. In that instant everything in his hands went flying, and some of those materials hit Adam. He had seen Larry start to step through the hidden skylight void and reacted by trying to grab him, lost his balance, and fell through a different skylight opening several feet away. As he plunged toward the slab floor, the third victim, the laborer below, was just starting to react to Larry’s fall when he was suddenly hit from above by Adam.
Epilogue. All three men eventually recovered from their injuries. Collectively, they suffered two compound-fractured legs; several broken collarbones; a broken arm, wrist, and ankle; and numerous abrasions and cuts requiring in excess of 150 stitches. Worker’s comp paid out well north of $200,000. Larry keeps one of the stainless steel rods, about 14 inches in length, that was placed in his leg and then removed when he was nearing recovery, as a reminder of the accident.
This really was an avoidable incident. Can you name at least five actions that contributed to it? This would be an excellent exercise for a company safety meeting.—Dennis A. Dixon is an author, contractor, and speaker with 23 years of experience in the building industry. He can be reached at dixven@aol.com.
