Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025
105,313Records 71,083Employers 85,290Hospitalizations 27,770Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-10-31

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14392989

LAFAYETTE STEEL ERECTORS INC

Event
UNSECURED, COOLING TOWER, WORK RULES, CLEANING, CONSTRUCTION, FALL, FALL PROTECTION, FLOOR OPENING, TOWER, COMMUNICATION
NAICS
000000
Inspection type
Accident-driven
Activity number
#893511
Employer profile
LAFAYETTE STEEL ERECTORS INC
Summary number
14392989
Report ID
625700

Event description

Employee killed in fall through floor opening

Investigation abstract

On April 19, 1985, Employee #1, a timekeeper, was working atop circular cooling tower C1 at the River Bend Nuclear Power Station in Fort Francisville, LA. He ha d been told to help laborers clean up the area by picking up boards and lodged l umber. Apparently he accidentally picked up a 4 by 8 3/4 ft plywood sheet that w as covering a 3 1/2 by 6 1/2 ft opening in the floor. When he picked up the shee t he went through the opening and fell approximately 42 ft to the ground. Employ ee #1 was killed. The cover had not been sufficiently secured and Employee #1 ha d not been informed of the hazard associated with the floor opening prior to wor king in the area.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 22 M

    Nature of injury
    12
    Part of body
    4
    Event type
    5
    Source
    5
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    4
    Environmental factor
    13
    Task assigned
    2

Codes shown verbatim from OSHA's accident-investigation database. A human-readable decoder is coming in a future release once the accident_lookup2 dictionary is loaded.