New York City’s industrial regulations and norms are built to extensively protect workers in excavation sites. They mention extensive shoring and bracing requirements for trenches and excavations in order to prevent a collapse.
They also require employers and site owners to provide workers with adequate safety and protection gear, quality tools and excavation machinery to work with, such as bobcats, excavators, backhoes, bulldozers, rubber tire loaders, road graders, drill rigs, and several other heavy load machinery.
Workers must also be educated to maintain safe distance from excavation equipment, and ensuring that operators of equipment do not leave them unmanned while a load is being picked up. Similarly, there are scores of other safety measures that are taken and taught to the workers on site, to prevent any casualty in case of an accident. When property owners and contractors manning the project fail to ensure any of these safety practices, an accident results in an injury, loss of life, or loss of several lives involved.
Common Causes of Excavation Accidents
Excavation at a construction site always involves the use of heavy machinery, adequate safety measures and constantly keeping an eye out for any worker’s life or safety at risk. Sometimes, when any of these factors are subjected to negligence by anyone on the site, it may result in a catastrophe. Some common causes of an excavation accident are:
- Failure to practice OSHA safety regulations
- Malfunctioned excavation machinery
- Poor maintenance of tools and equipment on site
- Inadequate training extended to workers about using the equipment or exercising their own safety
- Inadequate safety measures administered
- Inadequate safety gear provided
- Improper maintenance of excavation equipment and heavy machinery
- Site collapse
Wiring mistakes leading to short circuits, leaving a forklift unattended while it’s lifting a heavy load, or failure to check the site for hazards at the end of a work day, are all other human errors that may lead to a serious situation.
Compensation Entitlements
If you have been involved in an excavation accident caused by negligence, you may pursue a personal injury lawsuit for compensation and relief. Depending upon the severity of injuries sustained and level of negligence involved, you may be entitled for the following compensations:
- Medication costs and hospitalization charges
- Ongoing treatment charges
- Loss of earnings
- Loss of ability to lead a normal life
- Pain and suffering
- Funeral costs (in case of deceased victims)
The Best Law Firm in the City
If you or a loved one was injured in an excavation accident due to another party’s negligence, call a New York City excavation accident attorney for legal assistance. Rosenberg, Minc, Falkoff, & Wolff (RMFW) is exactly that law firm. We know how to win cases and we smell legal blood, we pounce.
You want to be paid right? Was this your fault? Someone else was clearly negligent but you have been the one who has been suffering right? Do you want this pain to be sent to the party who is guilty? Who did this to you? This is where RMFW comes into the picture. Give us a call at 212-344-1000. We love making wrongs right.