(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)

(0:00 - 0:23)
One crane, one rebar panel, 17,000 pounds of steel. It should have been a routine procedure, but instead it became a catastrophic lesson in what happens when safety is overlooked. No-pick plan, a questionable crane, and a foreman who never made it home from that site the same.

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In this episode of Top Priority Chronicles, we pull back the curtain on an Arizona mine accident that left a man injured, a company demanding answers, and a video that may reveal the truth no one wanted to talk about. Was this an unavoidable accident or a disaster that could have and should have been avoided? Hello and welcome to another episode of Top Priority Chronicles. We are blessed to be with you another week.

If this is your first time joining us, please subscribe so you are alerted whenever we get put out a new episode, and if you've been with us before, we are glad to have you back. So this episode is another insurance case, and the title of this 18th episode is Lift Gone Wrong, 17,000 Pounds of Negligence. Now this was a worker's comp claim, and I'll say right up front, I did not find any red flags during the course of this investigation.

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The person who was reporting it was the owner of one of the construction companies, and he seemed very much on the up and up, but let me give you a little bit of background. This was a job that was being done in Arizona in the month of October in the year of 2023. There were three construction companies working together to complete a mining project.

(2:33 - 6:17)
This particular task, well during the incident that occurred, it happened during a particular task of a 17,000 pound rebar panel being moved, and for us lay folk who are not into construction, a rebar panel is short for reinforced bars, which are steel metal bars that are welded together, and they are used to reinforce the concrete so they can make the structure stronger. So this wall that was being moved is, they call it a rebar panel, and it was 17,000 pounds. The foreman that was hired to lead this job was Spanish speaking only, but he was able to communicate with his team effectively as well as he was in communication with the crane operator, and the crane was in position.

So there were three different construction companies involved in this incident. All three of those construction companies shall remain nameless. One of the construction companies were the general contractor, meaning that they were put in place to design and erect, create the project.

The second construction company involved was the subcontractor, and they were steel reinforcers, which meant that they basically, oh steel fabricators, I apologize, and that just meant that they, from the blueprints, created the foundation of the buildings. And then there was the last construction company involved were the iron workers, and that basically was, the iron workers construction company was the claimant and was one of the staff that had actually gotten hurt on the job. So what the owner informed me is that his foreman actually rigged the crane and loaded up the rebar panel, and upon lift it failed, and it was an unsuccessful lift.

Upon trying to lift, he did not go into details as far as describing what happened, but basically the wall was dropped, a part of it hit the foreman, the Spanish-speaking foreman, and he was injured, knocked unconscious, elbow shattered, and needed immediate medical attention. The owner talked to me about basically what part of the story he was told. He had a family member that was running his business that had relayed to him what had occurred, and that was what he was reporting in the claim, and which was basically that the claimant did experience an injury, he witnessed the injury, the claimant was working out from out of state, he lived in a different state, and he was coming in for work for this particular project.

(6:18 - 8:10)
The owner was pretty upset because his company has a buddy system where if there is an injury, they have a pre-existing plan that they accompany each other to the hospital, and basically this owner was pretty upset that his Spanish-speaking employee did not have the support he needed by having another co-worker be able to accompany him to the hospital in an unfamiliar city, unfamiliar, most likely primarily English-speaking facility, so I must say I was pretty impressed for the employer to say and have such a system in place. The claimant also had reported that MSHA, which is the Mines version of OSHA, which is the Mines Safety and Health Administration, did respond and they made a report, and so the claimant had complained to me or to the insurance company at least that he had not received those reports, although he had already requested them, so this was another way of him putting on record that he had requested those records from the other construction companies and also from the government agency and his request had not been honored. And then he also explained to me what he thought had gone wrong on that job site that day.

(8:11 - 10:48)
What he said was a usual standard practice is that they create a pick plan and a pick plan is that representatives from each company and each of the trades meet together to determine a to get on one accord about how they're going to perform this lift and what and that and the whole purpose of that meeting is to determine how they're going to keep all of their employees safe and what the owner of this contracting company says is that didn't happen that day and that is against policy and procedure. There he says that there may have been a question about if the crane was the appropriate size to be able to make a lift of that size and he says that he does not think that contributed to the accident but he he brought that up because that was something that was questioned before the lift occurred. The gentleman also mentioned that earlier in the day it was determined it was too windy so that lift was not going to happen, but later on in the day it was determined that they were going to make that lift.

He was not for sure who made that call but he was assuming that it was the general contractor or the the crane operator. The general contractor would have been the person who had hired the crane operator and the crane operator would from the owner's perspective would not have been taking orders from his guys the iron workers because the crane operator tells them what to do because he is the general contractor of the job. Lastly he says one last thing that he thought is that there was a video video evidence circulating of the lift which supposedly showed that during the lift there was a and I want to make sure that I'm looking at my report so I don't want to get it I don't want to miss state there was a video circulating circulating about the crane operator bouncing the wall off of the ground before the lift.

(10:49 - 21:41)
If that actually occurred it weakens the crane's grip on the heavy material and increases the chances of a fall and that is actually against procedure is which he stated. Now if that were the case where there was actual video evidence because it didn't come through me so the insurance could have received that evidence but it wasn't given to me this gentleman didn't have it so video evidence is the best evidence to have because you see with your own to everybody can see what happened but I don't know if that was obtained so the gentleman seemed to say that it existed and it sounds like if he saw it maybe someone else saw it and if because he was able to describe what was supposedly on that video and if that were the case I'd say that made his case that would probably make his case stronger against the claim being made against the general contractor that they were at fault and that was pretty much the gist of that claim the claimant's injury the claimant's claim consisted of the injury it consisted of lost wages and his surgery he had to get surgery and the claimant also informed me that they lost that job so when the the gentleman that was injured was cleared and able to go back to work he had refused to go back to that job but again the claimant reported that job was no longer available to them so there seemed to be some unanswered questions that needed to be answered by the insurance company before they could assign blame and that's going to be imperative for them to find out and be able to honor this claim and place it at the feet of the right company and so the the questions that I saw that were going to be imperative was why was the pick plan skipped and was the pick plan in fact skipped or was that pick plan performed and maybe this gentleman was not aware of it did either of the other construction companies withhold any of their safety reports or incident reports and if so why and lastly was that video ever located and did it adequately show what the owner of the construction company thought it was going to show that the crane operator had bounced the wall off of the ground before attempting to lift it which would have significantly attributed contributed to the fall and the injury of the foreman and my understanding is that the claimant wants to make sure that his guy is adequately taken care of his wages are paid he does not miss a paycheck and his surgery and hospital care is taken care of but it sounds like he's also trying to be maybe be reimbursed or have the claim actually fall at the feet of the general contractor and so I want to go into the importance of documentation and demanding official records and it sounds like this gentleman had crossed all of his t's and dotted all of his i's he called insurance he reported the even though he wasn't present he recorded reported the incident right away got his gentleman taken to the hospital and taken care of he made complaints to the appropriate governing bodies and he also requested um the documents and reports that had been submitted on behalf of this incident which he did his due diligence this gentleman had was able to acknowledge that the gentleman that was the foreman was spanish-speaking only that didn't come into play as far as my role because I didn't have to interview the foreman but for me he brought that up to say that this gentleman was in a primarily english-speaking city in a primarily english you know hospital and he's going to be put into a precarious situation considering he is spanish-speaking only and in a comp you know being medically compromised and unable to effectively communicate with getting his needs met at the hospital and so that sounded like a concern of the owner and I was very pleased to hear him say that they have already have things in place for situations like this and that it was not honored by the people you know by the general contractor even though they were made aware of it and he was basically putting on record what his complaints were and that you know if you're you know familiar with the court system you put something on record so then you can go back and refer to it and that record can also be used to help you be able to bring charge or bring claims against someone or you know the other companies later this case is a warning to every contractor and every subcontractor I'm not pointing fingers because I wasn't there and I'm just getting information from one party and so therefore all I could do was report back the information I was giving but I want to make sure that all contractors and construction subcontractors have all of your ducks in a row it is very imperative that if there is a policy and procedure in the way that you are to perform your tasks that you do those perform them the way you are supposed to there's always somebody watching and while they may not say anything in the moment they are always going to report you after the fact so I want to just encourage you if there is a if you don't have a checklist create a checklist have some visible way that you can put the date and time and maybe even list the names of who were present and maybe even have them initial or sign to say this is who was there this is the pick plan or whatever the policy and procedure is before you perform a procedure that puts people's lives in jeopardy or at stake and that you are following all safety precautions so that way you protect your company you protect your brand and you protect your people and that is going to you know allow you to have a claim to fame of you know lower incidents or you know workers injuries with your company and those are you know selling points or big things that you can advertise when you want to are you know trying to attract new talent into your company so I also want to make sure that I alert workers that you make sure that you know this was a fortunate incident where this gentleman was not fatally injured because you know as an insurance agent or I was an insurance agent but I work as a third party on behalf of the insurance company I would go out to claims where someone you know were receiving insurance benefits due to a death on the job and so though they happen they are not you know rare occurrences we don't hear about them often but they do happen and they can many can be avoided so if there are you know things that you need to do to get your ducks in a row and you know even prior to the incident maybe those are things like life insurance maybe having conversations with your family about you know what if scenarios what if this happened on the job what if I had an injury on the job who would they call are they going to call your your you know who's the best person to call if you're Spanish speaking only and there's a good chance that it's going to be someone speaking English calling to report an accident who is the best family member that's going to be able to be available to get that call so these are very real life scenarios and situations that we need to be talking about as families especially if you're working in fields that put you in high risk situations often and I know that iron workers and steel fabricators are often working at you know on high levels and doing this you know at the on the top of buildings and sky rises and you know these are high risk jobs and your lives are very important and they mean something to not only yourself but to your family and friends and even the people who employ you if something happened to one of my employees I know that it would be heavy on my heart so I just want to encourage us all to take that extra step to be extra vigilant take care of ourselves behind the scene and on the job there's a reason why safety procedures are in place so I just want to encourage us all if you have safety procedures in place make sure that you follow them to the T they are non-negotiable in high risk situations so until we see each other again you take care of yourself and make sure you are checking off the list for your safety bye

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)