Charles De Gaulle once said: "Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself. He imposes his own stamp of action, takes responsibility for it, makes it his own."
In the roofing industry, opportunities for crisis—in the form of employee injuries or fatalities—present themselves more often than in most other industries. According to U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Bureau of Labor Statistics Data, 100 roofing workers were killed in occupation-related incidents during 2006, 80 from falls alone.
If you are fortunate, you have never had to manage the chaos that ensues following a job-site fatality. But if you have had the misfortune of experiencing a fatality, you likely are already aware of how tempting it can be to hide from the media, the employee's family and the public. However, in times of crisis, it is important you take responsibility. Establishing a crisis-management plan ahead of time can help simplify the complicated process that follows a job-site fatality or injury, and it can help reduce the risk of having penalties and civil suits imposed on your company.
Professional Roofing spoke with two roofing contractors who shared their experiences with employee injuries and fatalities and what they learned.
A fatal fall
On Sept. 15, 2005, at 5:30 a.m., a crew from CRS of Monroe Inc., Monroe, N.C., arrived at a job site in a small town in southern Georgia. The foreman dropped the crew off at the job site and went to a nearby gas station to get gas and ice for the day. In the early morning darkness, the crew members began putting on their work boots and setting up lights on the rooftop.
One crew member, 28-year-old Marcelino Lopez, had started working for CRS of Monroe two weeks earlier. While the rest of the crew was getting ready, he began laying insulation tape on the roof though he had not been directed to begin work. In the darkness, he stepped outside of the warning line and fell 26 feet to the ground below.
"One of our employees on the ground heard a thud and ran over to see what had happened," says Scott Baxter, CRS of Monroe's vice president. "The crew called 911, and an ambulance showed up eight to 10 minutes after the accident. They did all they could to revive Lopez, but they couldn't. He died of head trauma."
Baxter was notified of the accident by the foreman at about 6:15 a.m. The job site was a 6 1/2-hour drive from CRS of Monroe's headquarters, so Baxter used the time in the car to make necessary telephone calls.
"During the drive, I called Tom Shanahan, NRCA's associate executive director of education and risk management, to pick his brain about what I should do," Baxter says. "I actually even called a competitor of ours who had experienced a fatality the year before and received some good advice."
Next, Baxter attempted to contact Lopez's family, which proved difficult because the family's primary language is Spanish.
"I had to work up my nerve—it was difficult just to make the call," Baxter says. "I called the number Lopez had provided as his emergency contact and tried to explain—in my broken Spanish—what had happened. The guy I talked to gave me another number to call. So I had to work up the nerve to make the call again; the same thing happened. Four calls later, I finally reached his family."
CRS of Monroe paid for gas for Lopez's family to drive to the hospital in Georgia, as well as hotel rooms and meals for the family during their stay. The company also paid for Lopez's coffin, clothes for his burial and transportation of his body to Mexico.
"I just felt like that was the right thing to do," Baxter says.
Following the accident, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) conducted an investigation, which included requesting all training records and conducting employee interviews. A Spanish-speaking OSHA representative conducted interviews with the Spanish-speaking employees.
"I was the outsider during these interviews," Baxter says. "I couldn't understand a lot of what they were saying—that's a pretty helpless feeling.
"If an accident ever were to happen again, I would hire a translator to be present during the interviews," Baxter continues. "I also would get a video camera and record everything—interviews, the job site after the accident, everything. You want to keep those meticulous records because as your brain gets fuzzy, they are all you have to fall back on."
CRS of Monroe received a citation from OSHA for not having a safety monitor present when employees are working outside warning lines.
Since the incident, CRS of Monroe has revamped its safety program. The company requires a half-day of safety training for each new employee and conducts weekly comprehensive safety audits at job sites and maintenance facilities. Additionally, CRS of Monroe developed a prejob risk analysis form to determine safety methods and equipment before starting work on jobs.
And CRS of Monroe now has a crisis-management plan established, as well.
"I had kicked around the idea of a crisis-management plan before the accident, but we never had one in place," Baxter says. "But now do we ever! We just conducted our second review of the plan."
And because of his experience with Lopez's death, Baxter understands the importance of having that plan instituted before an accident occurs.
"You do not want to try to establish a plan amidst the chaos," he says.
Coping with tragedy
John Gooding, chairman of the board for Gooding, Simpson & Mackes Inc., Ephrata, Pa., also learned the hard way how to deal with workplace crises. He has witnessed three fatalities during his time with the company. The first fatality, which involved a fall from a steep-slope roof, occurred in the late 1960s when Gooding was working as a summer helper.
But Gooding's first experience with managing a fatality came during the summer of 1988. A Gooding, Simpson & Mackes crew was finishing work on a three-story building, and one employee, Alyce, was helping lower equipment off the roof with a hand hoist.
"She was about to lower the item used as a counterweight with the hand hoist," Gooding says. "As she let go of the counterweight—a 5-gallon bucket of cement—she noticed the employee on the ground wasn't paying attention and wasn't holding the other end of the rope. She grabbed the rope to keep the bucket from injuring the worker on the ground, but the momentum of the falling bucket pulled her off the roof and she was killed."
Gooding received a call from a doctor at the hospital where Alyce had been taken following the accident. The doctor told Gooding Alyce had died, and he requested that Gooding bring Alyce's family to the hospital. However, the doctor asked Gooding to not tell the family she had died because doing so is the hospital's responsibility.
"It took me about 45 minutes to drive Alyce's parents to the hospital," Gooding says. "They kept asking, 'How is she?' and I kept saying, 'She's not good.'" But the entire time I knew the truth. When they found out at the hospital she had died and I had known the entire time, they never forgave me—and I can't say I blame them.
"If I can give just one piece of advice, it is to be truthful with the employee's family, even if you are asked not to," Gooding continues. "If you receive information from an irrefutable source, such as a doctor, I think it's important to pass that information on to the next of kin."
Gooding faced a fatality of a different nature in November 2003.
"We were going to a job out of town," Gooding says. "Typically, when a job is out of town, we will drive to the job site early on a Monday morning and come back home on a Thursday night.
"One employee on the crew was 19, and he always slept during the drive to job sites in the mornings," Gooding continues. "For this particular job, we needed him to drive a dump truck to the job site. He fell asleep at the wheel, drove off a big embankment and was killed instantly."
Although Gooding, Simpson & Mackes did not receive OSHA citations for either fatality, the company has learned from its experiences, namely in terms of helping family members of injured or deceased employees.
Gooding says: "We have a $50,000 life-insurance policy on all our employees. All medical bills are taken care of. We make sure that between insurance, workers' compensation and life insurance, all expenses are paid. We try to bend over backward for the families."
Additionally, the company provides financial assistance to family members if they have to travel to a hospital out of town, including miscellaneous expenses for hotels, gas and food.
Gooding also has learned how to cope with the media during a crisis. He hired a full-time safety director, who also serves as the company's spokesperson. The spokesperson proved to be helpful during an incident that occurred in early 2007.
"We had an accident at a job site in Maryland in which a piece of scaffolding snapped and a worker fell 33 feet, severely injuring his back," Gooding says. "Our safety director immediately went to the job site to start collecting evidence, so I was able to go directly to the hospital. I also attempted to contact the family."
Gooding had a difficult time locating the family. He drove to the family's residence to inform them of the accident, but no one was there. He also tried calling two telephone numbers listed in the injured employee's file, but no one answered.
"The employee's sister ended up learning about the accident through the Internet," Gooding says. "The next day, media started calling. Our safety director handled all those calls for us."
Fortunately, the employee has since recovered from his fall.
A written plan
As is evidenced by Baxter's and Gooding's accounts, confronting a severe injury or fatality can be one of the most stressful situations you ever will encounter. Having a written crisis-management plan already in place is key to helping you face the pressures presented during this chaotic time.
To develop an effective crisis-management plan for your company, NRCA recommends you take the following steps.
Identify potential crises
First, identify potential risks that could lead to or create crises. These risks could include the following:
After you have developed a complete list, establish an outline or checklist of responses for each possible crisis. To help you determine what to include in each checklist, the National Roofing Legal Resource Center's OSHA Citation Defense Manual provides the following steps to implement immediately following an accident, injury or fatality:
Identify potential audiences
Your crisis-management plan should identify the individuals or groups of people who will need to be addressed in the event an injury or fatality occurs. Every crisis will have its own combination of components—such as weather conditions, time of day, location, etc.—that can create unexpected audiences. Additionally, there can be audiences within audiences; family members of an employee who died from a fall may need to be addressed separately from family members of an employee who was injured in the same incident, for example.
Possible audiences may include employees; family members of employees; customers; vendors; building occupants and neighbors; advocacy groups; environmental groups; public officials and regulators; the public; and the media.
Establish response teams
Your plan should establish crisis-response teams that will be responsible for completing the tasks outlined for each crisis. Each team should be assigned one or more emergencies. In smaller companies, all employees may need to be members of a response team that will respond to every emergency.
Crisis-response teams should be responsible for gathering relevant facts in the event their specified emergency occurs. To determine what happened at the scene of an accident, crisis-response teams should be prepared to ask certain standard questions. These questions could include, among others: How did the incident occur? Where did it happen? What was the date and time of day? Who was involved? Were there witnesses?
The teams also should be prepared to ask questions specific to the potential crisis. You should establish these questions and include them in the individual lists that accompany each crisis.
Assign a spokesperson
Appointing a company spokesperson is an important aspect of a crisis-management program. This person, who can be any member of your company's management, should be the only one to respond to the media in the event of a crisis, and all of your employees must know who this person is.
When an injury or fatality occurs, the spokesperson will be responsible for delivering your company's official message to the media and following up on media requests. Therefore, it is important this person has in-depth knowledge about your company and can be articulate under pressure.
Prepare employees
An effective plan should include training your employees in crisis preparedness. All employees should be trained in your company's emergency procedures.
Crisis-response teams should assign each member specific tasks and ensure they know how to complete these tasks efficiently. Employees should have access to OSHA regulations and have current CPR and emergency certifications.
Additionally, job-site supervisors should be trained not to panic if a crisis occurs. They must know to call 911 or the local emergency response number, notify headquarters immediately and shut down the job site.
Miscellaneous
All management staff should receive copies of your crisis-management plan and be cognizant of their specific responsibilities in the event of a crisis. And it is a good idea to keep copies of the plan at your home, in your car, in your briefcase, etc. Accidents do not always occur during typical work hours.
And importantly, be sure to review and update your crisis-management plan frequently. You likely will learn new information about safety procedures and think of other procedures to implement in your crisis-management plan, and these can be added in during review of the plan. Additionally, make sure your plan includes updated contact information for all employees.
A turning point
John F. Kennedy famously said, "When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters—one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity."
Facing a crisis in your company is undoubtedly one of the worst and most trying experiences you can face. So what opportunity can possibly stem from such a tragedy?
It seems the opportunity is simply to share what you have learned from your experiences with other roofing professionals so they might avoid the same crises within their businesses.
However, hazardous situations will continue to exist in the industry and, even with appropriate safety precautions and work practices and shared experiences among contractors, job-site fatalities and injuries undoubtedly will occur. It is important you have a crisis-management plan in place in case you ever experience such a tragedy in your company.
Ashley St. John is Professional Roofing's associate editor.
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