OSHA investigating accident at Islands of Adventure that injured worker in low zone

As I noted in the comments about Podcast #147:

...there should be some kind of guarding and/or demarcation to make sure that employees necessarily working in a kill zone don't get killed. But the authority that is going to require that is not ASTM or the amusement ride rules, it is going to be workplace safety rules, meaning OSHA or its equivalent.

There you go. Looks like it's OSHA this time around.

That's the funny thing about Florida. For the big parks (>1000 employees) if you hurt customers, you can do your own investigation so long as you report the body count properly to the State. But if you start hurting your employees, then OSHA will get involved.

Makes me wonder if there is an OSHA investigation going on with regard to the monorail crash. That victim was an employee, so that incident would also potentially include OSHA jurisdiction.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Yes... the article indicated they were on that one as well.

I would not think that is unique to Florida. Since OSHA covers the Occupational aspect I would think that any time an employee is injured on the job OSHA has jurisdiction. OSHA would not cover hurting a non-employee.

OSHA would cover employee issues anywhere. But, for instance, if the SOB accident from 2006 had happened at IoA, they would be allowed to do their own investigation and would only have to report an injury tally to the state. The state would not be involved in the investigation or determining that the ride is safe to re-open.

Everywhere else though, some government body would have jurisdiction to be able to investigate an accident and determine whether it is safe to re-open.

If I understand it correctly...

Another issue with OSHA is that if there is a State occupational safety agency, it has jurisdiction. If not, it becomes a Federal matter.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.