[safety] Building Maintenance - fire escapes
The Sky Is Falling
This afternoon a piece of a fire escape fell and injured two pedestrians walking innocently below.
Of course most headlines and news stories reported that the entire fire escape had fallen. In reality, while still a terrible accident, one metal step of the fire escape fell.
It apparently happened during an inspection by an engineer hired by the building's owner. As she put her weight down onto the step it came free from the rest of the fire escape, fell 7 stories and struck the two unlucky people walking/standing below. They were rushed to a nearby hospital with serious injuries.
The engineer partially fell through the fire escape after the step came loose, but she was able to catch hold of something and pull herself up to safety.
This is a scary thought because I work in the city and walk by old buildings all the time, as do millions of other people.
A harrowing image capturing a fire escape collapse a historic in Boston!
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Was it the slat that fell? I always felt like shits gonna just start falling left and right one day. Thank God for local law 11. No joke.
this is tragic man. there was one fatality as a result of this... terrible...
https://twitter.com/NYPD5Pct/status/964579345107996675
I'm endlessly grateful to you always stressing the importance of safety on the site. Although I understand it's difficult to predict everything (such as this event) but there is a lot we can prevent from happening...
Isn't it ironic that this happened during inspection that is meant to prevent such events from happening? I think the inspected site should be fenced until deemed safe. But I guess it's not that simple in all cases...
Agreed. Check out my response below or somewhere in the replies. Actually I'll just quote myself:
IANAL but just to clarify a bit I think that should fall under ownership's responsibility to safeguard the premises.
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STOPIt's hard to believe the news sometimes because of the way they twist it. Safety checks should be done properly and regularly to avoid such events.
This incident does seem more like a true accident. However, when working or inspecting an area that has activity below, it's good practice (for safety and liability reasons) to have the area below cordoned off - at the minimum - if not actually installing some type of temporary physical safety measure.
Indeed. Sometimes when we do things repetitively we forget details that might cause us bigger trouble such as this.
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STOP