Work at Height Fatalities in the Repair, Maintenance, Alteration, and Addition Works

Abstract

Hong Kong's construction industry has shown significant improvement in safety performance since the turn of the century. The number of industrial accidents in the construction industry has decreased from 11,925 in 2000 to 3,833 in 2004, which is an encouraging drop of almost 68%. However, the category "fall of person from height" has always represented a large proportion of the industrial accidents, particularly fatal accidents. In 2004, fall of person from height represented just over 47% of the total number of fatal accidents in the construction industry. The statistics show that although the overall number of accidents has dropped immensely, the same does not apply for fall from height accidents. According to statistics provided by the Labor Dept. of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, there were a total of 22 fatal industrial accidents associated with fall of persons from height in repair, maintenance, alteration, and addition works during 2000-2004. When analyzing these case studies, 12 common factors were identified for analyzing these case studies and strategies were suggested to prevent recurrence of similar accidents in each case. The top five strategies were: ͑1͒ provide and maintain a safe system of work; ͑2͒ provide a suitable working platform; ͑3͒ ͑tier͒ provide safety information/training/instruction/supervision; ͑4͒ ͑tier͒ provide suitable fall arresting system/anchorage; and ͑5͒ maintain safe workplace.

Falls from height: analysis of 114 cases

“…It is also interesting to notice that training and certification were missing in 19.3% of the workers. This is important because training increases workers' perception and reaction to risk and, when conducted regularly, can improve safety performance and therefore the worker is more likely to identify, evaluate and control risks (Chan et al, 2008;Hinze & Gambatese, 2003;Rodríguez-Garz et al, 2015). In addition, it is essential to consider that training should be conducted in accordance with the individual characteristics of workers as age, position, trade, number of years of work, past experience with accidents, and personality, which was all found to contribute on how effective would be the training (Kim et al, 2011).…”

An expert system for the quantification of fault rates in construction fall accidents

“…In Turkey, fall of people from a height is responsible for approximately one-third of all fatal accidents on worksites in 2010 [3]. In 2004, fall of people from a height represented just over 47% of the total number of fatal accidents in the Hong Kong construction industry [9]. In addition to the statistical data, Kartam and Bouz [10] investigate the causes of accidents in Kuwait construction industry and identified falls as the main cause of construction injuries and fatalities.…”

Accidentalidad Laboral en el Sector de la Construcción: el Caso del Distrito de Cartagena de Indias (Colombia), Periodo 2014-2016

“…Los accidentes de trabajo en la industria de la construcción China son frecuentes y pueden producir discapacidades permanentes y muertes acompañados por lesiones más frecuentes como fracturas, trauma, contusiones, contusiones, moretones y abrasiones, provocados por las condiciones físicas de andamios y escaleras utilizados para realizar tareas de construcción en altura. También es referida la peligrosidad que revisten los andamios y escaleras pueden ser muy peligrosas cuando se usan incorrectamente (Chan et al, 2008). Investigaciones en zonas del sur de Australia, donde el factor meteorológico se ha relacionado con la accidentalidad, muestra que los trabajadores varones han sufrido una proporción desproporcionadamente mayor de accidentes graves en comparación con las trabajadoras durante épocas de verano, debido a subestimar el riesgo y sobreestimar su capacidad para hacer frente a ella, lo cual ha incrementado el gasto medio de los trabajadores masculinos por accidentes de este tipo (Rameezdeen, et al, 2017).…”