Few people awake in the morning thinking that it could be the last time they do it. Most Pittsburgh area residents are instead focused on completing the tasks necessary to get the day going before they head out for the day’s planned activities, such as work.

Despite the efforts of employees and employers, deaths that are due to job site accidents, sadly do occur fairly regularly. While they can of course happen in many different settings, we seem to commonly hear about those that take place on a construction site. Last month, a man succumbed to injuries he sustained while working on a roof in Titusville, Pennsylvania.

The roof the 43-year-old man, who was a resident of Ohio, was working on, was that of International Waxes Corp., a wax products plant. He was apparently in the process of removing beams from the roof when he fell to his death after a beam gave way.

Prior to the fatal incident the worker had been wearing equipment designed to protect an individual from a fall. Just before the accident occurred however, he removed the equipment, apparently so that he could change his location on the roof. It is unclear as to whether he would have survived had the safety equipment been on at the time.

Whether a wrongful death lawsuit will be filed in the matter is not yet known. That depends on many factors including whether negligence on the part of another was in some way to blame for the death.

Source: The Republic, “Ohio man dies in fall while working on roof of wax products plans in northwestern Pa.,” Associated Press, Aug. 17, 2012

• Our firm handles similar situations to the one discussed in this post. For more information on these types of claims, please visit our Pittsburgh work accidents page.