Michael McCann, PhD, CIH, is director of safety research at CPWR – The Center for Construction Research and Training, the research, development, and training arm of the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO. In addition, we gathered data on construction crane injuries and deaths from the Internet from January to August, 2008.

Recently, we re-examined the data when further studies showed that many construction workers struck by crane loads were not being counted under the CFOI Source code for cranes. In light of the large number of recent fatalities, CPWR first examined the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in June, 2008 to evaluate trends over time and propose recommendations to prevent future injury and death.

On September 16, 2008, OSHA published the proposed crane and derrick rule for public comment in the Federal Register, with a deadline for public comment of December 8, 2008. The committee first met in July 2003, and reached a consensus on regulatory language for the new standard on July 9, 2004. In 2003, OSHA formed a Crane and Derrick Negotiated Rulemaking Advisory Committee (CDAC) of representatives from industry, labor and government to develop a new safety standard for the construction industry to aid in reducing the number of fatalities.

Selected examples of crane-related bystander deaths collected from news reports are included in Table 1. But injury and death to bystanders is not a first-time occurrence. The first New York crane collapse garnered much media attention because of the scale of the event – a high death toll among workers and a visitor killed when the crane’s boom crushed a residential building. New Yorkers, already jittery from the first crane collapse, saw another crane fall in their city May 30, which killed two construction workers and injured one worker and one bystander. Just 10 days later, a 20-foot crane section in Miami fell 30 stories, killing two construction workers and injuring five. The deaths of six construction workers and a bystander, along with injuries to 24 construction workers and first responders in a New York City crane collapse March 15, 2008, set off an alarm within the construction community and city dwellers living in the shadow of large scale projects. This was a re-examination the data, which was first looked in June 2008. CPWR review of BLS data on crane related injuries and deaths.

Nyc crane lift plan