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June is deadly month for Maryland workers

Melissa Thompson

A worker in Annapolis, Maryland who was trimming a tree on the job was hit and killed by a limb when it fell on him. According to the Anne Arundel County Fire department, the man was trimming the tree as part of his job when he was struck and killed by the branch. The accident transpired at approximately 3:30 p.m. on June 10th in the 100 block of Sunset Drive.

Witnesses to the accident stated that the man was hit by the branch while he was working 8-10 feet off the ground. When rescue workers arrived at the scene they found that the man had sustained fatal injuries.

At the time of the accident, the worker was wearing a harness, and according to Fire department spokesperson Lt. Erik Kornmeyer, he was still harnessed 8 feet up in the tree after the injury occurred. Authorities reported that it took about an hour for special emergency crew to extract the deceased worker. His identity was not released.

 This accident was one of four deadly workplace accidents that occurred in June in Maryland. According to the Associated Press, on June 5th a 20-year-old construction worker was killed when a deep trench where he was working on a sewer line in Baltimore’s Clifton Park neighborhood collapsed on him. A 31-year-old construction worker was killed on June 8 after falling down an elevator shaft and on June 13th an additional construction worker in his 30s was electrocuted.

The Maryland Occupational Safety and Health office was notified and is investigating the circumstances of all of these fatal accidents to determine causes.

According to the Labor Department’s data, workplace fatalities in Maryland climaxed in 2006 with 106 fatalities. That figure dropped significantly to 60 in 2008 but increased yearly through 2013 with 79 deaths.

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 5,190 workers were killed on the job in 2016, which translates to more than 14 deaths per day. Personal injury attorney Howard Ankin notes that the four leading causes of deaths on the job, or the “fatal four,” are (excluding highway collisions) falls, being struck by an object, electrocution, and getting caught or stuck. Together, these four causes were responsible for more than half (63.7%) the construction worker deaths in 2016.