University Times

Employees from 27 contractors doing construction work on Pitt’s campus gathered at an event that reinforced constructions-site safety practices on May 8. The event was coordinated by William Santa and the facilities management division and is part of a national campaign to educate construction workers about safety on the job.

The 2017 National Safety Stand-Down event at Pitt was a “tremendous success,” says William Santa, safety manager in the facilities management division, as 178 employees from 27 Pitt contractors gathered May 8 on campus to hone their construction-site safety practices.

Santa opened the event by quoting what Chancellor Patrick Gallagher said in his previous roles as acting deputy secretary of the Department of Commerce for standards and safety and director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, when the National Safety Council recognized Gallagher as a top 10 safety leader in 2014: “There is no better way to repay [workers’] service than to do everything we can to ensure that they don’t get hurt doing their jobs.”

Three representatives of the Pittsburgh office of OSHA – the Occupational Safety and Health Administration – were on hand to remind contractors that falls are the top cause of construction worker fatalities, accounting for a third or more of deadly accidents on the job. Of the 602 construction worker fatalities nationally in 2015, for instance, 364 were due to falls, 90 from being struck by something, 81 from electrocution and 67 from being caught in or between an object.

Bob Wengryn, fall protection sales manager of Miller Fall Protection, demonstrates the a safety harness and instructs event attendees on how to do a proper harness inspection.

Bob Wengryn, fall protection sales manager of Miller Fall Protection, performs many of the trainings for campus contractors. He presented the latest information on how to properly don a safety harness and how to conduct a harness safety inspection to prevent falls.

Richard Scott, area safety manager at PJ Dick corporation, reviewed life-saving rules for construction job sites.

Pitt’s National Safety Stand-Down event was part of a national effort to reduce the number of worker falls and improve overall safety on the job. The campaign’s name comes from the military term for when there is a stoppage of activity – a stand down – after a safety-related death or severe injury occurs and attention shifts to a focus on training and hazard avoidance.

“We take safety into account during the construction project planning process,” Santa notes, “which includes conducting a hazard analysis of each component of the project so that proper controls are implemented before work begins.” The facilities management office will continue to review the safety performance of potential contractors and sub-contractors, including their specific fall management plans for each project, and conduct regular field safety inspections.