OT: Man Killed By Tape Measure

A man was struck and Killed By a Tape Measure That Fell 50 Floors In Hudson County.

The tape measure became dislodged from a worker’s belt on the 50th floor at a construction site.

A 58-year-old man at a Hudson County construction site died after a tape measure fell and hit him on the head, a Jersey City spokesman said.

The tape measure became dislodged from a worker’s belt on the 50th floor in Jersey City, struck equipment about 10 to 15 feet off the ground, ricocheted and then struck and killed Gary Anderson, according to NBC40.

The Somerdale, N.J. resident, who wasn’t wearing a hard hat when he was delivering sheetrock, was taken to a hospital where he died, according to NBC40.

Anderson had just parked his truck and stepped from the vehicle when the accident happened, said Carly Baldwin, a spokeswoman for the Jersey City Department of Public Safety, according to The New York Times.

That is sad and a freak accident.

Freak occurrence, a ricochet. Given where the truck is, you can see the lines for a swing stage scaffold way up above and the material or personnel hoist is also nearby. I'll bet it came off someone on the swing stage scaffold.

One of the rules of high rise construction to remember is about people working above you, and the building perimeter. You can see in the photos, a point of ingress/egress, there is sidewalk bridging with what should be planking on top, so you have some protection from above.


Its hard to believe, but I've had jumbo brick thrown off upper floors intentionally at an ironworker crew rigging very large and expensive 4000lb windows 5 feet wide, 25 feet high. A bricklayer, on a scaffold tried bouncing them off the temp power shack roof, onto our windows to break the glass. The job was high stress, ironically, given I was signaling the crane, supervising the rigging, I did not attend the weekly contractor meeting that was in progress while this was happening. I decided to briefly attend, collecting one jumbo brick, interrupting the meeting by slamming it on the table, told the GC we cannot work, and you'll be back charged the value of a 14 man crew, and the cost of the crane with an operator and oiler for one day. I then rounded up the crew and went to the floor the bricklayers were on to explain to their foreman we are stopped and you'll be getting the bill from the GC, in addition to making a point with those on the scaffold. That was the end of that problem, to this day I still cannot believe what I saw, a man throwing bricks at the roof of that shack to bounce em over to hit the glass.

I've seen all kinds of things intentionally tossed out of high rises, not always an accident, people do it intentionally, plastic bottles with yellow liquid, 5 gallon pails full of material etc. Then you have a guy drop a load of brick right while you are walking out, always one in the crowd, happened right after they were reprimanded for not wearing their hardhats. My father has a white ceramic or dense polished stone egg, had some weight to it and was not damaged. It was intentionally tossed off the roof of a 30 story building in a huge co-op development, called co-op city in nyc, no hardhat would save you from that thing.

Ones thoughts go out to the family and friend of the deceased, a freak and tragic event.
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A somewhat similar thing happened to me back in 1968. Fortunately, I was wearing a Hard Hat.

I worked in the Research & Development Department of Pacific Clay Products in Santa Fe Springs, Calif. (worlds largest manufacturer of vitrified clay sewer pipe). I was working on the ground level of our experimental Iso-Press Tower which would pneumatically press dry clay granules into sewer pipe (instead of wet clay extrusion), when a co-worker up on the 5th Level (about 90 feet above me) accidently kicked a 12 inch Crescent Wrench off the platform. The wrench hit on edge directly across the top of my Aluma-Lite Hard Hat, leaving a 1 1/2 inch deep crease in my hard hat and knocking me unconscious. Fortunately this was witnessed by a Supervisor and several other workers. When I awoke, I was in a Hospital being checked for injuries. They said I had a "moderate concussion", got 4 days off and a week of "light duty".

For several years after, they had my hard hat & the wrench on display in the Front Office along with a photograph of me wearing the hard hat and holding the wrench in the crease.

Thanks to my hard hat, I'm just lucky to be alive.

Doc

Building an aircraft carrier in VA., think it was the Enterprise, walked off the gangway going home, heard "LOOK OUT BELOW!", and a welding electrode went THUNK!!! in the wood gangway. Stuck in pretty good, according to my friend.

Most anything can kill you if it hits in the right place at the right velocity. Maybe we should all wear hardhats.

Or as my friend likes to say: "Life is tough; wear a helmet".

My father wore the same model as in the link below, a blue one, almost like a metallic blue. Fiber Metal brand.

I realize they banned these eventually because they conduct electricity. It's hard to believe the modern hard hats would not fracture or fail in the same situation as you told us about.

Personally, I wear the same brand, Fiber-Metal, I like their products and the hat, does fit well, set the inner suspension system to fit correctly, really hard to have the hat fall off if you are in an awkward position, they have a lot of height to them, so maybe not for all situations.

A lot of big companies seem to use one particular brand, put their logo on it etc., regardless, I'd order my own, in a Fiber Metal model, and have the logo put on, that's how much I like the brand. Turner Construction uses a commonly seen model with a V molded into the hat, a little lower profile, you'll see every employee with the same brand hat.

Sounds like you were extremely fortunate, unlike the person in this story, likely no hat would have prevented it if the tape measure bounced and changed directions hitting him from the side.
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When tape measures are outlawed...only outlaws will have tape measures.

Poor guy, wrong place, wrong time. I get sloppy on PPE sometimes, events like this make me ensure hard hat is on at all times. I would think he should have had a hard hat on if walking around on site, but getting out of the truck is a different issue. I am too tall to sit in truck with hat on, so there is that time I am outside without one.

I had one dropped on to my shoulder from 85 feet. It didn't break anything, but it put me in a heap and bruised me up good. On the up side, nobody came down to claim it, so I got a tape measure out of the deal..