In the heat of hurricane aftermath the two to three week window for fast money makes one lose sight of the little things. Today our wallets got ahead of common sense and almost cost us the game. PPE is something my boss and I try to live by, but hardhats seem to take a back seat when there are no overhead cuts taking place. This morning we started a large job which included taking a large tree off of a house. Since the home owner was going to be out of town, he asked us to tarp his roof when we had the tree off. One of our newest hand was left by himself to pack up the equipment and put the finishing touches on the tarp job. (Earlier in the week the boss had stressed the importance of hard hats for the look of professionalism and safety. However as mentioned hard hats seem useless when not doing work overhead.) Since we don't usually tarp roofs we don't carry the best tools for the job and all we had was a claw hammer and a 4 pound sledge.
Twenty minutes after I left the job sight I got a call from my boss telling me that our hand had dropped a hammer on his head from the top of our 18 foot ladder and to get over there ASAP. Luckily the job I had moved to was yard cleanup for a local surgeon and he gladly followed me to the sight. On the way over I feared the worst from the deadly sledge and upon arrival I found the groundsman setting on the porch with his face covered in blood. Fortunately the surgeon inspected him and found no major neurological problems and our man only needed stitches. The groundsman went on to say that it was the claw hammer and not the sledge that had dislodged and struck him. The surgeon was satisfied with stitches however the paramedics that arrived started using deal-breaker terms like ambulance ride and cat scan. Well to make a long story shorter they don't intend to bill us because we are working in a disaster area. Our man is clear for work tomorrow and hopefully we will all learn from this. Even though the good jobs come hard and fast a brush with death or dismemberment makes one realize that no one life has a dollar value not to mention disabling emergency's can cripple your whole operation. Where that ppe and tell your employees to do it or hit the road.
Twenty minutes after I left the job sight I got a call from my boss telling me that our hand had dropped a hammer on his head from the top of our 18 foot ladder and to get over there ASAP. Luckily the job I had moved to was yard cleanup for a local surgeon and he gladly followed me to the sight. On the way over I feared the worst from the deadly sledge and upon arrival I found the groundsman setting on the porch with his face covered in blood. Fortunately the surgeon inspected him and found no major neurological problems and our man only needed stitches. The groundsman went on to say that it was the claw hammer and not the sledge that had dislodged and struck him. The surgeon was satisfied with stitches however the paramedics that arrived started using deal-breaker terms like ambulance ride and cat scan. Well to make a long story shorter they don't intend to bill us because we are working in a disaster area. Our man is clear for work tomorrow and hopefully we will all learn from this. Even though the good jobs come hard and fast a brush with death or dismemberment makes one realize that no one life has a dollar value not to mention disabling emergency's can cripple your whole operation. Where that ppe and tell your employees to do it or hit the road.
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