You may not know that falls account for 37 percent — the largest share — of deaths on construction sites. And more than one in three fatal construction falls happen from heights of 15 feet or less.
Those are just a couple of the reasons the OSHA Consultation Program at Boise State and ESI Construction are combining forces to host the third annual Safety Stand Down for employees and subcontractors at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, May 10 at Boise State’s Center for Fine Arts, now under construction.
During the event, ESI will stop work at the site. Boise State Head Football Coach Bryan Harsin will speak. Organizers will offer attendees fall protection training and a free lunch.
“The Fall Protection Stand Down is an annual ESI event where we stop work on our projects to create fall protection awareness within our industry. We feel it is a great opportunity for all the trades to build relationships with one another and learn ways to be proactive with fall hazard safety,” said Korey Hall, a project manager at ESI’s Meridian office.
Hall played on the celebrated Boise State football team that won the 2007 Fiesta Bowl and played several years in the National Football League before returning to Idaho.
The event on campus coincides with the National Stand Down to Prevent Falls in Construction initiative with similar events taking place across the country. ESI will also stop work at its other projects in town on Thursday, including at Micron, Albertsons and Panera Bread.
Organizers are expecting about 500 workers to attend the Boise State event. ESI has also invited the students and staff of Boise State’s Construction Management program and representatives from the OSHA Consultation Program at Boise State University to participate.
ESI recently received Engineering News-Record’s Mountain States Best Project: Excellence in Safety Award for City Center Plaza as well as an Award of Merit: Excellence in Safety for the Inn at 500, both projects in downtown Boise.
Boise State’s OSHA consultation program and ESI hosted the first Stand Down in 2016 at the Grove Plaza in downtown Boise. In 2017, workers gathered in Meridian for the annual event.