The headline out of Jacksonville, FL reads, “OSHA: Roofing worker’s death ‘preventable’”. As an EHS professional, I feel like I should be able to come up with a better retort then, “Well, duh,” but it seems to be awfully appropriate here. Preventable incidents – preventable deaths – are what we do. All incidents, injuries, and fatalities are preventable and we believe that to be true, because if we didn’t, why would we be doing this in the first place? The sad truth is that the very existence of that headline shows that the idea of preventing incidents, injuries, and fatalities in the workplace is an alien concept to the non-EHS professional.

The preventable death in question occurred when a roofer fell 24 feet to the ground through a skylight that didn’t…wait for it…have a safety cage!

Had somebody done an evaluation of the work area, had somebody been knowledgeable enough to know that skylights are a fall hazard, had somebody with authority insisted that the skylights be protected, had the workers felt empowered enough to refuse to work in a hazardous situation, roofer John W. Miles III would probably be alive today.

The good news is that OSHA stuck the employer, Pinnacle Roofing Contractors, Inc., with two willful and two serious violations worth $154,000 (would that be a satisfactory value on your loved one’s life if their employer willfully did something – or failed to do something – that led to your loved one’s death?).  The bad news is that those penalties do nothing to bring Mr. Miles back from the dead.

Read Full Article At Simplifiedsafety.com

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