Home Forums General Discussion Safety Talk Another Death

:(http://m.nydailynews.com/new-york/worker-falls-elevator-shaft-nyc-hotel-built-article-1.2211087

My deepest sympathy to all who suffer this lose.

Dan, Thank you for bringing this to our attention. It's sad to here that what appears to be a simple action would have such a devastating conclusion.

sad news...

I understand we lost another brother this morning in New York. An Otis man our prayers to his family. Please be careful out there.

An inspector was hit and killed by counterweights in Illinois yesterday also.

Dan,
As I get older it bothers me more and more. Last night I read through the previous posts in this section. I was looking at the amount of deaths listed. I started to compile a list by Date, City, State, Company and Cause. I'm not adding the Names of the ones we lost. I don't wish to offend anyone or disrespect their memory.

It's amazing how little information is out there (statistically) listed. Currently I'm looking in the lists published by OSHA. Their lists are missing some of the loses we have discussed here on the site.

If you know where else I may look, please let me know.

jkh, Our industry is amazingly good at keeping this info under wraps. As the inventor of the Time Out Jumper I have researched as many deaths and the cause of deaths in our industry as I can. And many injury and death results are placed under a gag order after a settlement has been reached where the company pays out but does not have to admit guilt or responsibility. And the injured party or next of kin has to remain silent as to cause, fault or the amount received!! As with Jumper left behind accidents how do you fix a problem that no one will admit to having. But I can tell you this these are not young inexperienced mechanics who are dying out there. These are 20 to 30 year men. It seems that a majority happen on OT call backs. And our death rate has to be increasing compared to 20 to 30 years ago when you may of heard of 1 or 2 guys dying a year. But where to get the statistic to prove or disprove this lies with the companies or the international. Are the death rates tied to hours of OT worked? I have more questions than answers but I do have my opinion. Tom Syberts pod cast The Elevator radio pod cast is a good source to look at as far back as his records go he catches the majority of elevator and escalator deaths and injuries.

The OSHA records I have found state about 32 deaths a year on elevators and that normally over half those deaths are people working on the equipment. I do not say elevator men because a lot are building maintenance workers or owners. The main cause of death from my research is crushing and falling with some electrocutions. From what I can gather there is a death every 3 years from Jumpers being left behind. Mind you this is on the deaths where you can find what is listed as the cause. OSHA states that for every death there is about 2000 injuries so the math is simple after that. I believe one reason our industry is so overlooked on cause of death is that we are such a safe form of transportation. Any other industry that transport the public every death or major injury is investigated by a team of experts with a full report of the findings. Try and find that with our industry.