Engineering and maintenance in institutional and commercial facilities can be dangerous work as front-line technicians must deal with threats from arc-flash incidents, slips and falls and chemical exposures. But for engineering and maintenance managers involved in planning and overseeing construction projects in their facilities, such projects present an added layer of risk and even death for workers.
In New York City, The Waldorf Astoria’s much-delayed $2 billion renovation was hit with a full stop-work order after a 45-year-old construction worker plummeted to his death on Jan. 2, according to the West Side Spirit. Under the order, the Department of Buildings is demanding that safety conditions for construction workers be improved before the order is lifted.
The worker fell through a hole in a suspended ceiling on the hotel’s sixth floor, landing 40 feet below in a third-floor ballroom. He was reportedly helping an electrician at the time and was pronounced dead at the scene.
It is the second fatal construction accident on the East Side of Manhattan in less than a month. A worker was killed Dec. 13 while working on the demolition of the Community Church of New York and its affiliated residential brownstones. In that incident, a cherry picker the worker was riding on hoisted him 32 feet above the ground, crashing him into a steel beam.
The luxury hotel is undergoing a $2 billion renovation. It shut down in 2017 after planning to add 375 condos for long-term residents and had been scheduled to reopen in 2020.
Dan Hounsell is senior editor for the facilities market. He has more than 30 years of experience writing about facilities maintenance, engineering and management.?
