Collapsed roof trusses kill carpenter foreman

Oregon Case Report:13OR027
Release Date: July 2014

The following report is the product of our Cooperative State partner and is presented here in its original unedited form from the state. The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the individual Cooperative State partner and do not necessarily reflect the views or policy of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

SUMMARY

A 33-year old carpenter foreman was killed when the roof truss system he and his crew were installing collapsed. The victim was hired to be the foreman for a project to construct a residential shop building. A few days before the incident the crew began framing, sheeting and bracing the external four walls. On the day of the incident, vertical truss bracing (2 X 4’s) were nailed to the north and the south wall (see Figure 2). The truss manufacturer arranged for the delivery of the trusses on a trailer pulled by a truck-mounted crane. The truck operator provided the foreman with the delivery packet containing the BCSI-B1 Sumary Sheet-Guide to Handling, Installing, Restraining and Bracing of Trusses (see Reference #7) before setting up to offload the trusses from the trailer. The foreman assigned each of his four-man crew their positions and tasks. The foreman worked the center span of the trusses installing bracing and runners and unhooking each truss from the crane rigging. After the thirteenth truss was toenailed into its place and the temporary short member top chord lateral restraint was installed, the victim disconnected the truss from the rigging. The truck operator and crew member on the trailer saw the truss system collapsing and yelled to warn the crew. The two crew members working on the top plates of the framed walls were knocked off the structure to the concrete floor below and were injured from the fall and falling trusses. The worker on the concrete floor beneath the erected trusses cutting lateral restraints to size sustained a head concussion. The victim sustained a fatal head injury when he was struck on the head by a falling truss.

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