Safety

Hospital fined for worker’s fatal rooftop fall

Hospital Safety Connection, February 21, 2007

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OSHA has fined a hospital $4,000 for a violation that led to an employee falling off a roof to his death off while removing snow.

The worker was using a tractor with a snow plow attached to clear a rooftop helipad at Grinnell (IA) Regional Medical Center on January 15. The tractor somehow rolled backwards off the helipad, missed a steel safety net, and plunged to the ground, according to the Des Moines Register.

The tractor's owner's manual prohibits using the equipment around areas where a driver could drop off a surface, a provision the hospital should have enforced, the OSHA violation states.

Since the accident, the hospital has changed its policies to ban using a tractor to clear snow from the helipad, the Register reported. Snow removal on the helipad also now requires two workers to be present, the medical center's president told the newspaper.



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