One defective plank was the cause of a three-story fall that killed a bricklayer. He was part of a crew laying bricks on the top floor of a building. They had built a six-foot (1.83-meter) platform across the space between two scaffolds. They had done everything properly, with the correct size planks and the required guardrails. However, one of the planks was not scaffold grade and it had extensive dry rot in the center. The bricklayer stepped on the plank and it fell apart. He fell 30 feet (9.4 meters) to the surface below. Investigators looking into this fatality recommended that a competent […]