Peabody, MA — An employee at the U.S. Food facility in Peabody, Massachusetts, was hospitalized after falling nearly 30 feet when he stepped on a skylight. The accident happened on Tuesday, February 10, 2015, around 9:45 in the morning.
The man, who’s only been identified as a 47-year old, works in the maintenance department and was looking to see if a crew needed to be brought in to clear the three feet of snow that had accumulated on the roof of the facility. The skylight he stepped through was covered in snow. In the fall, he broke both legs, and afterwards had difficulty breathing.
Reports say that workers had to clear an area by plowing snow and towing cars to make room for the medical helicopter to touch down.
The man was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital. There’s been no update on his condition.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is currently investigating the accident.
Scene of the Accident
Commentary
I actually saw an accident very similar to this not too long ago in which an employee was performing some maintenance work on a roof and fell through a skylight. In that accident, it turned out that the worker was very new on the job, and hadn’t actually been trained for the work he was being asked to do. Now, all I know about this accident is what’s been reported, and I don’t think that a lack of training came into play here at all. But I have to wonder if proper safety procedures were followed. Was the man wearing a safety harness? If not, why not? Would something like that happen because a procedure was ignored, or because a procedure just wasn’t in place? The answers to questions like this do have the potential to impact the way an accident is handled, so hopefully the investigation into what happened will shed some light on that.
Unfortunately, an OSHA investigation can take months to complete. When you take into consideration the fact that a victim only has a limited amount of time to do anything after being injured in a work accident, months of waiting can add up to a lot of wasted time. In situations like these, independent investigations are always recommended. They’re equipped to deliver answers in a much more timely fashion.
— Grossman Law Offices
