A construction worker has been badly injured in an onsite fall in Johannesburg according to Netcare 911.
Netcare 911 spokesperson Shawn Herbst explained that paramedics were forced to do advanced life-support on site after responding to reports of an incident on Helen Joseph Street in central Johannesburg last Wednesday.
The attention was necessary as the builder, a 36-year-old man, had fallen from height and become impaled on exposed rebar through his lower torso.
According to Herbst the man was transported, “in a serious condition to hospital for further assessment and care.”
According to the US Department of Labor’s On-Site Consultation Program (OSHA) 61% of all construction accidents are due to impalement from rebar. The programme recommends protecting all protruding ends of steel rebar with rebar caps or wooden troughs, which have both been shown capable of preventing the worst of rebar incidents. The strongest and most effective action is however to ensure that any employees who are working at height above exposed rebar use fall- protection or prevention, which must be considered the, ‘first line of defence against impalement’.
