New York Construction Accident Lawyer Weighs In On Contractor's Safety Violations In Fatal Manhattan Crane Collapse

Online, January 14, 2013 (Newswire.com) - New York construction accident lawyer Kenneth A. Wilhelm discusses safety violations and penalties faced by a Yonkers crane operating company and a sub-contractor in connection with a deadly crane collapse on the West Side of Manhattan.

Officials with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have cited a crane company for allegedly "serious" workplace safety violations in connection with a crane collapse that killed a 30-year-old construction worker and injured four others. According to an Oct. 4 report in The New York Times, federal investigators determined that the Yonkers Contracting Company failed to conduct required safety inspections that could have identified rope defects. The deadly crane collapse occurred on April 3 in Manhattan near West 34th Street at a construction site, the report states.

OSHA officials stated the violations including allowing a worker inside the crane's fall zone, not ensuring that the rigger was trained properly and failing to properly inspect the wire ropes that are used to hoist materials. The victim was fatally injured as the crane's boom struck him when the wire rope that was used to raise and lower the boom snapped, the report stated. The agency also cited a subcontractor that employed the victim for a violation involving failure to train a rigger. The contractor faces $68,000 in proposed fines for the violations and the sub-contractor faces $7,000 in penalties.

There is no question that following federal safety standards with regard to performing the necessary inspections would have helped prevent this tragedy, says New York personal injury lawyer Kenneth A. Wilhelm. "Federal health and safety standards serve a very important purpose. It is critical that employers are diligent when it comes to following these safety regulations. Ignoring these standards put workers at great risk of serious or fatal injury."

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