Lives lost on the job: OSHA says 13 workers die nationally every day; 3 more have died this year in Jacksonville

It is called a Safety Stand-Down, a voluntary event this week that urges employers nationwide to talk directly with employees about safety.

Promoted by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, it's a response to federal statistics showing that work fatalities caused by falls accounted for 351 of 2020's 1,008 construction deaths across the nation.

The stand-down's observance followed a somber Jacksonville event the week before when a bell was tolled 18 times, each representing a 2021 work-related fatality in OSHA's 26-county North Florida region. A row of empty chairs displayed the names of those who died.

One bell was for Enoch Isaac Jackson III. The 20-year-old Home Depot employee was hit and killed by a truck on March 10, 2021, in the parking lot on Regency Square Boulevard. Then the bell sounded again in memory of Elijah Chute. The 22-year-old died on Nov. 9 after a crash between a forklift and truck at the Home Depot on County Road 220 in Fleming Island.

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Also included was 63-year-old Kim Lisa Abdul, who died Jan. 28 when she was hit by a truck on a pier at the Jacksonville Port Authority's Blount Island facility.

As it has for the past eight years, the Northeast Florida Safety Council hosted a Workers’ Memorial Observance Ceremony on the same day as OSHA's national designation of the same remembrance. The Safety Council began its regional observance after all 33 onboard the SS El Faro died on Oct. 1, 2015, while steaming into Hurricane Joaquin from their Jacksonville departure.

"You want to emphasize the importance of safety in the workplace, creating a safety culture there, and preventing fatalities," Safety Council CEO Catherine Sutton said at the April 28 ceremony.

"That's why we are here, not only to honor those that we lost, but to continue protecting those every single day," she said. "We realized that there was not anything else. OSHA has this as a day of recognition and we wanted to bring people together to make it an event."

Worker deaths by the numbers

Nationally an average 13 workers die as a result of workplace injuries every day, the latest statistics from 2020 since OSHA said 2021 data will not be available until later this year.

In 2020 there were 4,764 work-related fatalities nationwide, a 10.7-percent decrease from 2019 when 5,333 workers died on the job, OSHA said. About 20 percent (1,061) of worker fatalities in 2019 in private industry were in construction, accounting for one in five employee deaths for the year, OSHA said.

Some of the declines may be attributed to more people working from home instead of on-site during the pandemic.

Florida worker fatalities have ranged from a high of 422 in 2004 to a low of 218 in 2012, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers.

In Florida in 2020, 274 workers lost their lives, 90 of those in transportation incidents, plus 77 due to falls or slips and 43 to exposure to harmful substances, OSHA said. Another 36 died due to violence from people or animals, while 25 came from contact with objects or equipment and three from fires of explosions.

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Florida fatalities were higher in 2019, with 306 people killed, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers.

A workplace injury happens every seven seconds annually in Florida, the Safety Council said. While the council was unable to provide the names and details from the previous seven years of its memorial, Sutton said workplaces locally are also "certainly safer" than before OSHA began instituting safety mandates in the 1970s.

'For those who did not return home'

"Eighteen is still too many when you think about that happening in a year," Sutton said. "... But of course the year of the El Faro was 33, so any major incident like that can drive the numbers up. But we are doing everything we can and you just have to continuously emphasize the value of this."

Jim Anderson, Safety Council board president, opened last week's memorial by saying it was "for those who did not return home" as they joined other ceremonies across the country.

"We acknowledge the suffering experienced by families and communities, and recommit ourselves to the fight for safe and healthy workplaces for all workers," he said. "... And possibly in years to come we will have no reason for a memorial because everybody came home."

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Memorializing those who die at worksites is a "solemn, unfortunate occasion," said Lake Ray, head of the First Coast Manufacturers Association. A few years ago he could have become one of those mourned, remembering when he was at a construction site and roof panels collapsed "less than 10 seconds" after he walked outside.

"I literally was seconds from being crushed under those," Ray said. "... Doubtless to say, that is something that has left quite an impact on me for the very fact that instances happen, and they happen quickly in the workplace."

2022 has been deadly so far for workers in Jacksonville

This year has already seen three work deaths in Jacksonville.

• On Jan. 1 a shipping company employee was working on a vessel off Wigmore Street as a large crane was being used to unload material. While the crane was being lowered, its bucket struck the man in the upper body and killed him, the Sheriff's Office said at the time.

• On Feb. 25 a man suffered a major head injury in a privately owned warehouse at a JaxPort facility on Propeller Drive and was pronounced dead at the scene, the Sheriff’s Office said. He was working next to large bundles of eucalyptus paper that each weighed 500 pounds when a forklift knocked several over and he was hit.

• On March 18 a crash on Old St Augustine Road left a construction worker dead. The flagman was in a northbound lane that had been shut down near Princess Labeth Court for construction when a truck ran over him as it was backing up, the Sheriff's Office said.

dscanlan@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4549

Workplace fatalities in 2021in North Florida

James Wharton, drywall and insulation contractor

Kim Lisa Abdul, marine cargo handling

Greg Simmons, natural gas distribution

Enoch Isaac Jackson III, home-improvement center

Mike Ellis, residential care facility

Paul Michael Fabian, logging

Eric Shoup, restaurant

Shyama Nixon, landscaping

Mason Lee Hudgens, contractor

William Ziegenfelder, power line worker

David Lamar McLaurin, warehouse

Gilberto Macario, landscaping

Nolan M. Bickhardt, landscaping

Allen James MacCalla, gas station

Fredys A. Montejo, contractor

Elijah Chute, home-improvement center

William Rynearson, material recovery

Jean Guito Meus, landscaping

Source: Northeast Florida Safety Council

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Northeast Florida Safety Council honors Jacksonville-area work deaths