OSHA Directives Provide for Skylight Safety

Berke on safety: Walk on the wild side—but not on skylights A construction worker repairing the roof of an industrial building in Arizona left his access ladder in place while he went to lunch. During his absence, a young child climbed the ladder and found the domed skylights that covered the roof. To his delight, he discovered they acted just like trampolines. He jumped on each one in the row and then turned around to leapfrog back to his starting point. On the way back, he broke through one of the skylights which had cracked on his first jump. At that moment, the construction worker returned and saw him, but he was unable to reach the skylight before the child fell 22 feet to the concrete floor below where he lay unconscious in a pool of blood. The worker got passersby to call 911 and help him break into the locked building to reach the child. Luckily, the boy recovered physically, but he may have suffered brain damage as a result of the accident. In 2005, the last year for which OSHA has reliable statistics on this, 767 people died and 79,310 sustained serious injury from falls of all types, many of which were through skylights. Skylights can be domed or flat and are made from molded acrylic or corrugated fiberglass. Flat translucent skylights masquerade as roof patches or hide under dirt, debris, or snow. New skylights can usually withstand severe impacts, but ultraviolet rays and weather weaken and embrittle the plastic over time. Accidents usually happen when a person sits on the skylight, falls onto it, or unintentionally walks on it. OSHA directives state, "Every skylight floor opening and hole shall be guarded by a standard skylight screen or a fixed standard railing on all exposed sides." The screens should