Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Federal officials criticize state safety agency's inaction in fatal fall
ReviewJournal.com: "Federal safety officials are accusing Nevada's workplace safety agency of failing to combat reluctance, evasion and falsehoods from two local employers when the state investigated the fatal fall of a 20-year-old part-time stagehand at the MGM Grand hotel in 2009 .
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5 comments:
This appears to be the sad case of an OSHA inspection gone wrong. A heavy hitter like the MGM grand is likely to impede some of the local nevada OSHA inspection, but I am surprised they did not come back with subpoenas for further inspections. The excuse that the planking system was "abandoned" is pretty invalid seeing as it should then not be accessible or clearly labelled such, especially if they are using an outside rigging company to work in their space.
I wonder how the follow up investigation will be affected by the latest statements from OSHA saying that they will be examining the entertainment industry closer due to other high profile incidents.
In cases like this it is difficult to uncover a clear explanation of what exactly happened. Due to the time elapsed since the accident, the evidence is unclear and has the possibility of being tampered with. This is unfortunate for the family of the deceased as they could possibly not recieve fair compensation. On the other hand, it is not exactly OSHA's fault for not finding violations that led to the accident. Regardless, out of respect for the family, they should conduct another investigation and be compliant with all that the federal officials ask of them.
This is a sad and unfortunate incident, and I agree with Kevin that this does seem to fall in OSHA's court, as far as lack of follow up. If they had originally seen these planks that were 'abandoned' then they would have no reason for being up, or not marked as such. As for the other stagehands who apparently use them all the time, before Rodriquez died I can understand how they might not have had a problem with it. There usually exists something that might scare you or seem unsafe, but if those who have been there longer do it or explain that people do it all the time then its easier to rationalize. Not safe or recommended, but sadly understandable. Also as much as I am sorry for the loss of her son and I understand her outrage, 'willful' makes it seem as though they truly wanted for him to die. Which not only is hard to prove but seems a stretch, did they want to make money and cut corners with safety? Yes. Is that wrong and should they be held accountable? Of course, but I do not believe at the end of the day that they wanted her son to die. Hopefully this will lead to a closer eye being paid and other companies implementing safer work places.
I absolutely think that OSHA needs to provide further investigation into this matter. They also should be held partially accountable since during the inspection before the accident they saw that the planks were there and just took the MGM grands word for it that they were 'abandoned'. However, I see it also being the MGM grand's responsibility. With the information given by this article, it definitely does seem as if it was a 'willful violation'. Willful does not mean that they wanted him to die, as Sonia stated. In that case, no, I don't think they wanted him to die. But according to this article, a willful violation "entails deliberate behavior by an employer that puts a worker in danger or an employer's indifference to hazards". That seems to be the case here, as they obviously knew it was unsafe if they lied to the OSHA inspector and told them that it was abandoned. Also, the statement given by the MGM rigger that he had "done this so many times he no longer wore a harness" clearly shows an employer's indifference to hazards.
It is a shame that this person had to die from a fall. There will always be that freak accident that occurs and someone dies. I know that OSHA is there to prevent these types of things but they are going to make hiccups once in a while but the law must be followed. I agree that they need to do something about this after it occurs. I wonder if there was more inspections done this would have been prevented. There always those moments in a working theater that they just need to get things done so people expose themselves to dangerous situations but these regulations should help regulate accidents from happening. They are most likely tired and want to sleep and OSHA’s control over casualties needs better monitoring to prevent these accidents. I do hope that they do come up with better OSHA policies after this fall to prevent other accident but there will continue to be freak accident even with regulations.
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