At Lieberman Ryan & Forrest LLC, we know that if you work construction in New Jersey, you work hard every day to make a living and support your family. We also know that due to the nature of your various jobs and the sites on which you perform them, you face many risks of injury that other workers do not necessarily face. One of these risks is that of elevator accidents.
As reported by the Center for Construction Research and Training, 31 people die each year in one of this country’s 17,000 elevator accidents. Construction workers like you account for roughly 50 percent of these fatalities. If you are an elevator installer, maintenance worker or repairman, your risk of injury is especially high, since this group of workers represents one-third of all construction site elevator fatalities.
Sobering elevator accident statistics
Elevator accidents result from three main causes as follows:
- Falls into and down the shaft – 56 percent
- Getting caught in or between the elevator’s moving parts – 18 percent
- Getting hit by the elevator’s counterweights – 16 percent
In one recent 17-year period, 263 workers died in an elevator accident: 110 installers and repairmen, 107 workers doing jobs near an elevator, and 46 workers performing jobs in the elevator car or shaft. Of the 107 who died working near an elevator, 50 percent of the elevators were improperly guarded or not guarded at all. In the other 50 percent of accidents, the worker was doing such things as the following:
- Cleaning the elevator shaft
- Repairing a stuck or stalled elevator
- Trying to retrieve something that had fallen into the shaft
- Working on the platform above the shaft when it collapsed
Depending on the height of the building in which you are working, its elevator shafts can span hundreds of feet. Should you fall into one, you face grave risk of receiving a catastrophic injury or even dying from your injury.
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