Scott Goehring: OSHA inspections and violations

Incident on Mar 20, 2015 (fatal): Employee falls from ladder and is killed

At 2:02 p.m. on March 20, 2015, Employee #1 was painting the exterior metal rail balcony on the fourth level of the complex condo building. According to the supervisor, Employee #1 started working around 11:30 a.m. Around 2:00 p.m. the tenant of unit 3A on the fourth level was not home; therefore the employee could not walk through the apartment to access the balcony. Their solution was to use a ladder to climb over the open stairway railing, located along the center west of the building on the third floor, and onto the balcony on the fourth floor. A coworker used the A-frame ladder, which was used as a step-ladder and was set on the open stairway on the third floor, to access the balcony on the third floor. Employee #1 and the supervisor used the same ladder to access the balcony on the fourth floor. Shortly after that, Employee #1 climbed over the balcony rails on the fourth floor back to the ladder on the third floor. Employee #1 had a bucket of paint in his right hand as he climbed. At one point, Employee #1 had one foot on the ladder and one foot on the stair railing. Employee #1 lost his balance and fell about 26 feet to concrete walkway below. The coworker was watching from the third level balcony, and tried to catch Employee #1 from the balcony on the third floor but it was too far for him. . Employee #1 was pronounced death at the scene shortly after his fall. No fall protection was provided to employees while climbing from the fourth level balcony. climbing from the fourth level balcony.