Diane Lillicrap on the Importance of Workplace Safety Standards

Diane Lillicrap
St. Louis, Missouri

My son Steven was 21 years old when he was involved in a fatal injury in St. Louis. He was working for a contractor – at the time, he was disassembling a 100-ton crawler crane.

Steven was on the back end of the crane. The contractor had a 100% tie-off rule for fall protection, but Steven was never taught where to tie-off on the crane. In fact, there were no anchor points on the crane.

While Steven was on the back on the crane, they were getting ready to move the crane forward to lower the gantry. What happened was that the machine moved forward, but the operator was lowering the gantry at the same time, and Steven was tied off to a live line. Steven’s lanyard was wrapped around the drum 3 times and he died on the crane while they were trying to rescue him.

I guess the thing that bothers me the most is that the OSHA standard at the time was over 40 years old and it had been going through a rulemaking period for 7 or 8 years before it became a new standard. Unfortunately for Steven, the new standard was issued a year after his death. In the new standard there were things like “if you’re near the draw-works of the crane, you would not be tied-off.” There would be an assembly/disassembly director who would oversee the whole process and be able to stop the job at any time if he felt anyone was in danger. There would also be a pre-meeting before the assembly and disassembly where everyone would be told what their specific jobs were, and how to do their jobs. It’s unfortunate that was a little bit too late for my son. My husband and 2 other sons are crane operators and I am glad there is a new standard. I know that they’ll be allowed to do their jobs more safely. It upsets me that companies think that regulations will kill jobs – but the lack of regulations will kill workers. What does a safety device cost? What does proper training cost? Is it really worth the lives of our workers? I always feel that everyone who goes to work deserves to come home.

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Thanks to United Support & Memorial for Workplace Fatalities for connecting us with Diane.