OSHA Fatality and Injury Reports from Fire Sprinkler & Alarm Companies

The following examples are actual investigations conducted by OSHA.
They remind us of how dangerous our industry can be!

• An employee of a California supply company was standing beside his truck preparing to strap down a load of steel sprinkler pipe bundles when a forklift operator loading bundles on the left side of the truck bed knocked a bundle off the truck bed. The bundle of pipe struck the employee, knocking him to the ground. He died as a result of internal injuries.
• An employee of a Texas manufacturing facility was using a forklift to load bundles of steel sprinkler pipe onto a flatbed trailer. The employee got off the forklift, without properly turning off the forklift, and was crushed between the delivery truck and trailer when the forklift moved forward.
• A Sprinkler Fitter was walking along a permanent metal grate type floor to get a sprinkler pipe to use in the installation of an automatic fire sprinkler system. He fell 95 feet through a 2’ x 3’ opening in the floor. The opening had been covered by a 4’ x 3’ unsecured piece of 3/4 in. thick plywood. He died of multiple trauma injuries.
• At 9:00 p.m. on December 7, 2000 a Service Tech for a fire sprinkler company burned his right foot and was in the hospital for 14 days. He was changing a nozzle on a fire sprinkler using a six-foot stepladder to get approximately three feet high. The sprinkler was over a deep fat fryer. The Service Tech put his right foot on the lip of the deep fat fryer. As he turned to get to the nozzle, his right foot slipped into the hot grease of the deep fat fryer. The fryer was on wheels, so it could have been moved, but the Service Tech and customer did not move it. The cover was not put over the hot deep fat fryer either.
• At approximately 10:00 a.m. on August 21, 2003, a Sprinkler Fitter was working on the construction site of a new, four-story, multi-family assisted living residence. He was standing on the ladder cutting a section of pipe in a mechanical unit closet. He was standing on the third step of a 6-foot high FRP step ladder. The ladder had been purchased one week prior. The employee stated that due to the size of the closet, he did not fully open the step ladder and the spreaders were not locked. The floor of the closet was approximately 8 inches higher than the surrounding floor and it is suspected that two of the legs of the ladder slipped off the closet floor. As a result, the employee fell off the ladder. The employee was hospitalized and required surgery on his neck, including having a metal plate inserted into his neck and back.