Contractor Fined $65K After Fatal Crane Accident

Thursday, February 21, 2019 | 0

A joint venture formed between two contractors faces $65,300 in penalties for multiple serious safety violations after a worker was fatally struck by a steel beam last August while working on a light rail tunnel project in San Francisco, the California Occupational Health and Safety Division said Wednesday.

Shimmick Construction Co. Inc., of Oakland, and Con-Quest Contractors Inc., of San Francisco, formed a joint venture to work on the Twin Peaks Tunnel Rehabilitation & Rail Replacement project, which included refurbishing infrastructure, replacing rails and upgrading signal systems and other parts of the tunnel that's more than 100 years old, Cal/OSHA said.

On Aug. 10, an employee operating a rail crane to push two flat rail cars into the tunnel struck an overhead steel beam with the boom. The beam fell 13 feet from its support brackets and crushed an employee walking nearby.

Cal/OSHA said the two employers did not identify the potential hazards presented by pushing two loaded rail cars into the tunnel and did not control the crane’s travel to avoid collisions. Investigators discovered the crane operators had not been trained to safely operate the equipment, and workers had not been trained on safe procedures when the crane was being operated near them.

Cal/OSHA cited the joint venture for two serious and two serious accident-related violations.