Georgia Construction Workers Injured in Building Collapse

Washington, D.C. (Law Firm Newswire) July 17, 2014 – On May 15, two construction workers were injured after part of a building collapsed in Sandy Springs, Georgia. Sandy Springs can be found north of Atlanta and is home to a population of 100,000.

The employees were working on a second-level parking deck of a hotel under construction when the concrete underneath them collapsed. According to a police sergeant with Sandy Springs police department, both workers fell 15 to 20 feet in the accident. They were transported to a nearby hospital with minor to moderate injuries.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Sandy Springs Building Authority were called to investigate the scene shortly thereafter.

“It’s disheartening to hear about this building collapse, and with the statistics we know about on-site construction worker deaths, it’s amazing these workers sustained only moderate injuries,” said David Lietz, a wrongful death and critical injury attorney with the Lietz Law Firm in Washington, D.C. “A full investigation is necessary to make sure such gross oversight in workplace safety doesn’t happen again.”

According to OSHA’s website, 4,628 workers were killed on the job in 2012. That figure averages out to 3.4 deaths per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers — or 89 worker fatalities every week and more than 12 deaths every day.

Of these deaths, 806 (or 19.3 percent) worked in the construction industry. Construction work includes all of the major risk factors that OSHA calls the “Fatal Four:” falls, physical blows from an object, electrocution and becoming caught in or between objects on a worksite. The high number of construction-related fatal and nonfatal injuries can also can be attributed to unfamiliarity with safety procedures and repetitive motion injuries.