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JICOSH Home > Case Studies > Case No.75
Case No.75

Fall during assembly of suspended scaffold for bridge painting


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[Description of the Accident]

This accident occurred while suspended scaffold was being installed for painting bridge girders. The suspended scaffold was comprised of the main pipes supported by chains hung from the bridge girders and single tubes that extended perpendicular to main pipes. The plan called for installing two layers of scaffold.

Measures to prevent a fall when this scaffold was completed included safety netting stretched below the bottom of the lower scaffold platform and scaffolding boards beneath, to the right and to the left of bridge girders to make worker movement easy.

Two lift trucks with a maximum work height of 15 m were being used for this work, and the trucks were moved in succession after each section was completed.

On the day of the accident, three workers got off the lift truck on the ground to move the vehicle. However, the truck could not move forward because the tires were buried in river sand.

Five workers with their safety belts attached to the handing chains were waiting on the boards installed on the suspended scaffold and watching this situation.

After some 15 minutes, the workers on the scaffold turned towards a sound and saw the victim trying to catch the chain as he fell beneath the single tubes.

The victim had been adjusting the chains by himself. While he was waiting, he moved to the flange below the bridge girder and fell when he was adjusting the hanging chain or moving on the flange.



[Presumed causes]

1.While the victim had been using a safety belt while waiting on the scaffold, he was not using safety belt when he moved to adjust the hanging chains.

2. Although workers should have waited on the ground while the truck was being moved, they waited at an elevated site that pose the danger of falls.

3. The operations chief for scaffolding erection was not providing proper supervision with respect to the use of safety belts by workers.
[Type of business] Building and construction work
[Causal object] Scaffold
[Type of accident] Fall
[Number of victims] One fatality
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