Man falls from 10 foot scaffold at school site
(CNS): According to a police report, a construction worker at the Clifton Hunter School site in Frank Sound fell from scaffolding this morning, Thursday 14 April. The RCIPS said officers responded to a report of an industrial accident at the site at about 8:00 am. When they arrived police officers found that a 48-year-old man had fallen from a scaffolding platform where he was working that was around 10 feet in height. Police said the man received minor injuries to his forehead. He was transported to the hospital, where he is currently undergoing treatment but police said they expected that he will be released shortly.
Itis not yet known which firm the man worked for or if he was wearing and using safety equipment.
Category: Local News
Anybody know if the school is hiring yet? Or where to apply?
People have died from bumps on the head days later from blood clots etc. How insentive can people be when someone has been injured.
Well it might not be news for any regular person, but it is news from a Health & Safety at Work and Employers Liability perspective if this happened in any other ‘developed’ nation of the world, and an accident such asthis would be cause for huge concern for the employer, who would not only be facing a potential personal injury claim from his employee, the possibility of increased employers liability insurance premiums and the liklihood of an imminent inspection from the Health & Safety Inspectorate for breach of regulations… except oh yes, I don’t believe we have such regulations in place here so the employers can get away with it. Luckily for this employer the workman only bumped his head – they are both lucky.
For instance, in the UK there used to be a ‘6 foot rule’ and any employer expecting his employee to work over this height was required by law to take certain precautions and provide certain equipment to protect the employee from the possibility of falling and injuring himself. In 2005 however, the ‘6 foot rule’ was replaced with the introduction of the Working at Heights Regulations (WaHR 2005) which defined that a place is "at height" if a person could be injured falling from it, even if it is at or below ground level.
In many countries falls from height remain the single biggest cause of workplace deaths, and one of the main causes of workplace injury.
But you guys continue making out its insignificant and unimportant… when in reality, similar protective measures should be enforced here in Cayman to protect anyone who works from heights. Take a look around you at some of the construction workers we see working at heights without hard hats, harnesses, ladders, platforms or anything to help protect or break their falls. The fact that employers can still get away with this is scandalous.
A worker is also at least partially responsible for his own safety when working.
An employer can provide all of the safety equipment available, provide daily “tool box” safety talks, conduct daily inspections of its workers to ensure they are using the equipment provided, and yet still you will find people doing dumb things and injuring themselves.
Cell phones and boom boxes are a huge hazards on a work site to working tradesmen, yet the employer is the bad guy if he tries to enforce a prohibition of either of those things.
No. Safety, like charity, begins at home. Both employer and employee must do their part.
Thank you – very well said.
And by the way YES WE DO HAVE SAFETY REGULATIONS FOR THE CONSTRUCITON INDUSTRY and it is hell to get the employers to comply – there is just too much interference from the political arena. Cayman is run by the wealthy and if it is going to affect them then the politicians step in and all the laws go to hell in a basket.
Thanks CNS..Keep reporting these industrial accidents as it helps gauge how safe we work in Cayman. Suppose he fell from 10 feet onto a saw or nails etc. would be a different story I suppose maybe this guy was just lucky
man falls 10 feet, bumps head – get him an ice pack.
Think of all the wasted time this non incident has created. The police who showed up and then wrote a report. The workers at the hospital, The media who then wrote a story and lastly me who read it and felt the urge to send this reply.
If this is the new standard for journalism I hope to see a similar write up for every traffic fender bender we have each day.
I think the real news is that there is actually construction taking place at the school!
CNS: Tell me again why you read past the headline … why you checked back to see how many thumbs up you’d got. Hmmmm?
This was disseminated by the RCIPS, who like us have probably had numerous enquiries about it because in a small community like this people hear about these things and want to know what happened.
No offence but this is hardly news. I worked construction for 5 years and falling from 10 feet wasnt exactly a showstopper at work. Im sure a little magic water on his forehead will have him back at work bright and early tomorrow morning!
What a pity it wasnt YOUR HEAD ….. or maybe it was just a long time ago hahaha