construction accidents

Just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, New York City was in the midst of a construction boom. In the months after March 27, 2020, when Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered the pause of all nonessential building projects in New York, construction companies have had to navigate uncertainty about when and where they are allowed to operate. […]

New York City’s Department of Buildings has launched a new tool to help construction workers identify sites that are subject to mandatory OSHA Site Safety Training (SST). Local Law 196 of 2017 states that supervisors and laborers must have completed this additional safety training when working on certain large-scale projects. To give everyone a resource […]

More New York City construction workers were injured in 2018 than in each of the two previous years. Based on data collected by the Department of Buildings (DOB), 2018 was the most dangerous year for city construction workers in nearly a decade, with 761 injuries and 12 deaths reported. Several factors, including an increase in […]

Mike Barasch commented on two recent construction accidents in New York City: “These tragedies highlight the importance of construction safety, as these were preventable and avoidable accidents. Construction companies and the landlords that own the buildings under construction must be held accountable for their failure to abide by the safety rules and regulations put in place […]

A 25-year-old man working on an upscale hotel in Manhattan recently fell to his death down an elevator shaft in the unfinished building. The victim was reportedly installing elevator door frames when the car he was riding in stopped suddenly. A coworker in the car jumped to a landing, but when the victim attempted the […]

A construction worker in Crown Heights was nearly buried alive when the basement hole he was digging unexpectedly caved in. The concrete and dirt he had excavated collapsed on top of him, leaving him trapped underneath the rubble. Paramedics found him conscious but injured, and took him to Kings County Hospital for treatment. Unpredictable construction […]

An appeals court told the City of New York that it has to give laborers doing brick work at a public school suitable materials, such as a mechanical hoist, to raise and lower buckets of cement from one level of the work site to another. The plaintiff, who worked for the contractor renovating the school […]

A routine demolition turned dangerous on W. 57th Street near 11th and 12th Avenues on Wednesday, February 25 in New York City. The parking garage that was being demolished on the site partially collapsed during the process, striking a worker and leaving him with injuries. Fortunately, these injuries were minor in nature and he was […]

Zeng Guang Lin, a 26-year-old Chinese immigrant, was awarded $62 million by a jury in Queens in a personal injury lawsuit in 2008. Lin, who was working for Hutch Realty at the time of the accident, was not provided a safety harness while working on a roof for his construction job. As a result, he […]

Times Square was recently the scene of a construction accident when severe rains and winds of 43 mph caused a massive plywood retaining wall to fall down and injure three pedestrians. It took more than two dozen people to lift the wall from the injured victims, who were then rushed to Bellevue Hospital by firefighters. […]