Man falls 125 feet, dies in Philadelphia crane accident (NEW OSHA regs on the way) & video

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-10-12-philadelphia-crane_N.htm

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Authorities say a construction worker has died after falling 125 feet when a tall construction lift toppled over and struck a downtown Philadelphia apartment building.

Authorities say the victim is 40-year-old James Wilson of Glassboro, N.J.

Investigators want to know if Wilson was properly strapped into the bucket of the boom lift as he worked on a church roof. Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers says he may have free-fallen to the ground.

FULL story and video at link.

Jordan Barab is in charge of OSHA at this time. He is a former safety director for AFSCME. The new regulations are on the way.

http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/04/08/jordan-barab-named-acting-osha-chief/

If he was in the lift when it toppled, I rather doubt he would have survived the fall anyway.

I'm all for strengthening and enforcing OSHA regs, but some professions are just inherently dangerous, and thats why the people in such professions get paid more than the average bear. Or should anyway. If we take all of the dangers out of such professions, we could very likely see such grind to a halt and prevent any actual work from being done on top of making it harder to enter such fields, as well as possible large scale lay-offs.

Commercial fisherman in Alaska have the most dangerous jobs in the world, yet I never hear of any regs coming forth to protect them better...and it doesnt stop the fisherman from making a personal choice to continue working in that field.

The largest crane in the USA was being run by an UNTRAINED worker in Texas. Houston maybe? Several people died. No excuse.

I'm on Barab's mail list from his "Confined Space" blog days. I too am an AFSCME member. He will improve safety for workers (and bystanders). How many non-workers have died from crane accidents in the last year? Over a dozen I can think of.

I would have assumed this occurred in NYC. Plenty of those crane collapses thanks to gross safety violations and mismanagement happen up here under the rule of Bloomberg.

My thoughts go out to the man's family.

How would him being tied off or not tied off made one freakin' iota of difference in this case?

He could have been welded to the side of the box and still wouldn't have made it. :(