Partial Retaining Wall Collapse Injures NYC Worker

Another New York construction worker has been seriously injured on the job after he fell from a partially collapsed retaining wall.

The New York Daily News is reporting that the 20-year-old man fell 12 feet while working at an apartment building job site on West 167th St. in New York. The man was working on a retaining wall at that apartment building site when it partially collapsed and he fell from it.

Authorities rushed to the scene and transported him by ambulance to Harlem Hospital. He was last listed in critical condition, according to the Daily News report.

This is just the latest in a continuous string of reports involving construction workers sustaining serious and sometimes fatal injuries at New York job sites. Recent data shows that more than four out of 100 construction workers will sustain a non-fatal injury on the job that will leave them with some form of permanent disability.

Construction accidents have been on the rise, too. Earlier this year, we noted a Daily News report that showed the number of job site accidents had jumped from 119 in 2011 to 157 in 2012. A total of 187 people were injured in those construction site accidents last year.

While these numbers have risen, inversely, the number of building inspections conducted in New York has dropped dramatically. In this decade alone, a more than 40 percent drop in the number of building and construction site safety inspections conducted by city officials has occurred.

The Daily News reports that there were no violations against the site of this most recent accident, and that authorities will continue to investigate what caused the retaining wall to partially collapse.