More control needed over construction site hazards

10 August 2005

A spate of accidents involving workers falling through skylights has raised concerns that construction site hazards are not being adequately identified or controlled.

The latest accident to be investigated by the Department of Labour is the death of a worker at a demolition site in Mount Maunganui last week. The accident occurred when a 45 year-old man fell seven metres through a skylight. He later died from his injuries. Since the fatality, Bay of Plenty health and safety inspectors have stopped work on three further sites in Tauranga to protect workers from unsafe working conditions.

The Department is also investigating an accident in Ashburton last week, where a man died after falling through a skylight while attempting to fit an extraction system to a factory roof. Two previous accidents in the Cantebury-West Coast region this year involved workers being seriously injured when they fell through carport skylights. A further skylight fatality occurred in Rotorua last March, where the worker died as a result of injuries sustained from the fall.

The Department's National Operations Manager for Health and Safety, Mike Cosman, says it is essential that employers take time to plan the work to be done, identify hazards and take appropriate steps are taken to ensure they are controlled. "There are specific requirements for people working at heights, and managers need to make sure employees are properly trained and supervised," says Mr Cosman. "In these situations, the first step would have been taking steps to eliminate or isolate the hazard by covering the skylight. A further means of fall protection would have been providing harnesses for the workers."
ENDS