Site Safety Manager Charged in Site Fatality

Anyone who has spent time with me has heard my speech about the liability of site personnel who have not taken the proper steps to prevent accidents on jobsites. Jobsite safety is serious business and all members of the construction team need to take safety seriously!

Well, yesterday, ENR magazine reported that "A New York City prosecutor charged the site safety manager for Bovis Lend Lease LLC with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in connection with a fire that damaged a Deutsche Bank high-rise in lower Manhattan 16 months ago and killed two firefighters. The building had been undergoing asbestos abatement and demolition."

"The indictment accuses the defendants of being aware that a building Standpipe, a critical factor in the firefighters deaths, was inoperable or had been disabled and that the defendants failed to fix it or report the situation. The defendants faces up to 15 years in prison on the manslaughter charges, up to four years on on the negligent homicide charges and one year on a reckless endangerment charge."

If this doesn't get your attention nothing will! To read the whole story, click here.