Like many others in the past, this Safety Talk tells of an incident in which an employee of a roofing contractor was injured on the job. When listening to what happened, think about the roofing jobs that you have been on in your career. Have you made similar mistakes and placed yourself at risk?
Pete works for a roofing company in North Carolina. However much of the work that he does is at ground level. He is an experienced and certified lift driver and operates the lifts on nearly every roofing job his company does.
Last summer Pete was on a large roofing job that was scheduled to receive a big shipment of insulation. It arrived just in time. The foreman wanted Pete to get the materials unloaded from the truck ASAP so that the roofers had everything they needed to keep working. As is common with many large jobsites, there were a lot of people running around trying to finish jobs and keep up with deadlines.
Mike was another person on that same jobsite was Mike. He worked for an electrical contractor. They were behind schedule and Mike had just run out to his truck to get some tools that were needed inside. On his way back, Mike was thinking about the things he had to get done and paid little attention to Pete unloading the shipment of insulation. In his haste to get back inside and get back to work, Mike darted behind Pete and his lift. Pete lifted up the insulation off the truck and put his lift in reverse. Trying to make sure that the load of insulation was steady on the forks, Pete failed to look when he backed up. As you have probably guessed, Pete’s lift struck Mike and knocked him down, which could have killed him, except that the screams of several others in the area caught Pete’s attention. Yes, Mike was injured. Yes, the injuries were severe. But he eventually healed and was able to do electrical work again.
A review of the accident by both of the company owners and the general contractor’s safety consultant revealed that Pete’s lift had no backup alarm. From their interviews, they also found that Pete did not look before backing up.
DISCUSS WITH YOUR CREW:
It is true that anyone operating mobile equipment must try to be aware of all pedestrians in the area, and must always look in the direction of travel. But pedestrians on jobsites have responsibilities too. Always give equipment operators plenty of room, and assume that they don’t see you. If you must walk in an area where mobile equipment is being used, how can you be certain that an equipment operator sees you? (Discuss)
Pete was an experienced and certified lift operator. If you operate a lift and have not received safety training and have been authorized by your employer to operate that lift, let your supervisor know so that he can arrange to have that training conducted.