Roof Collapses
Contact us for a free consultation about your construction site injury.
Construction sites are riddled with accidents and injuries, often fatal, caused from roof collapse, structural collapse, and cave-in. The construction industry is one of the most hazardous business sectors in the United States: A whopping 1 out of 10 construction workers is injured every year. According to a 2005 report by NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health), the construction industry suffered 1,224 fatal work injuries in 2004—the most job-related fatalities of any industry sector.
Have you been injured by a roof collapse construction accident? Don’t delay about contacting a law firm to help you. Workers compensation just isn’t enough.
Mark J. LeWinter, Esquire, of Anapol Schwartz law firm, tried a case in Wilmington, Delaware where a jury awarded the plaintiff $14 million because of unsafe construction site practices.
Over 75 years ago a Berkeley, Calif. campus construction accident caused the death of three workmen and serious injuries to many other construction workers. The roof collapse accident occurred at a new civil-engineering laboratory under construction that was part of a Depression-era campus building boom.
While pouring of concrete to form the roof was nearly complete, a small section gave way, followed almost immediately by the entire roof. Men working below the forms and on them were carried down into the open basement and buried.
Seventy-five years ago, there were no construction site building codes and governmental organizations to monitor and guide those codes. Today with building codes and OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration), these safety precautions and building codes are often ignored in order to save a buck. Because the vast majority of mishaps occur on nonunion jobs involving immigrant laborers, numerous cases are believed to go unreported.
But back to Berkeley in 1931, an area of roof about 34 by 99 feet had failed, at a height above ground at 60 feet. The wooden forms to contain the wet concrete for the roof were held up by a temporary framework of supports called shores. At least 11 construction workers fell the 20 yards to the ground. Ambulances and fire engines came as did city and campus police, uninjured construction workers, and student volunteers who labored for hours trying to rescue the workers. An investigation by the state Industrial Accident Commission that opened on campus on April 13 would fail to pinpoint the cause, or causes, of the accident.
Whatever the cause of the roof collapse, the walls of the building were still sound, and construction quickly resumed. The building, when completed, housed the campus Engineering Material Laboratory, designed to provide the College of Civil Engineering with the facilities to stay at the vanguard of modern construction research.
Roofs collapse and cave in every day. Are you the victim of unsafe construction site practices? Has a loved one died from a roof collapse? The construction company may try to settle with you or worse – blame you.
Contact a law firm who is knowledgeable and experienced about construction site accidents.
Contact Anapol Schwartz for your free legal consultation today.