By Shawn Kasserman

Designed to provide temporary stability, help to ensure tools and equipment are within reach, and provide greater flexibility when working at great heights, ladders and scaffolding are used by approximately 2.3 million construction workers (65 percent). But these safety devices can also be the very items that cause injury or death when they are not properly used or maintained. Because negligence often plays a big role in ladder and scaffolding injuries, and because the problem amounts to thousands of deaths and injuries each year, it is critical that workers know what protections they have under the law.

Prevalence of Ladder and Scaffolding Injuries Cause for Concern

There is an insidious, silent killer in the United States – one that patients are often oblivious to, doctors and hospitals refuse to talk about, and is now considered the third leading cause of death in the U.S., placing it just below cancer and heart disease. In total, it claims anywhere from 250,000 to 400,000 deaths per year, yet there is no system in place to effectively track or prevent these deaths. Even more disturbing is that this killer – otherwise known as medical malpractice  – occurs at the hands of those who are supposed to heal.

What You Do Not Know Can Hurt You

Sick people go to hospitals to get better, but hundreds of thousands will never leave. Victims of poorly coordinated care, preventable infections, system failures, falls, or any number of other, preventable causes, these patients will die a wrongful death at the hands of the doctor, nurse, or surgeon treating them. No one – not even their family – may fully understand the death because those same system failures that allowed the death are often used to cover up its true cause and nature. And therein lies one of the major contributing factors to this American epidemic.

The use of power equipment and heavy machinery have enabled faster, easier work for construction companies, which has, in turn, increased their profits and productivity. Unfortunately, foreman, subcontractors, and other responsible individuals still cut corners, fail to follow all safety regulations, and put both workers and the general public at risk. Construction crane accidents can especially dangerous and often have catastrophic consequences, yet they remain one of the most common types of construction accidents in the United States.

Crane Accidents Occur at an Alarming Rate

In the United States, approximately 125,000 cranes are currently being used in the construction industry. Another 80,000-100,000 cranes are thought to be in use in the general and maritime industries. All of them are regulated with rules regarding when and how they should be operated and secured; yet collapses still happen at an alarming rate.

Of all the jobs in existence, construction workers have one of the most dangerous. On a daily basis, they are exposed to biohazards like dust and asbestos, and prone to injuries from power tools, heights, equipment, electricity, environmental hazards, and heavy falling objects. To reduce the risk of injury from these hazards, there are numerous safety policies and procedures that contractors, property owners, foreman, construction firms, and even the workers themselves must follow. Unfortunately, some take shortcuts (otherwise known as construction negligence) and put countless lives at risk.

Nearly 100 Construction Workers Fatally Injured Each Week

According to statistics from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), 4,679 workers were fatally injured on the job in 2014. On average, that amounts to approximately 90 deaths per week, or more than 13 deaths daily. Of those, only 17 percent are construction contractors.

By Robert Geimer

The U.S. Government has announced it reached a settlement with a New York Hospital over claims the hospital allowed television crews to violate patient privacy.  According to the announcement, New York Presbyterian Hospital will pay $2.2 million in fines for allowing crews of ABC television series “NY Med” virtually “unfettered access” to private patient information and for filming patients in distress without their consent.  The HHS Office of Civil Rights called the violations “egregious.”  As part of the settlement, the hospital will be monitored for two years to ensure that it fully complies with patient privacy.