BEACON HILL - The words "Safety First" are plastered in bold letters across the east side of the Beacon Hill Station of Sound Transit's Link light rail. These two simple words serve as both a founding creed and commitment to worker safety as the station is enters the second major phase of construction.
Early Sunday morning on June 24, Sound Transit representatives put on display their freshly drilled 4,300 foot segment of the tunnel on the hill's west side. Board members and experts walked a handful of media personnel through the new tunnel to get a sneak-peak at what promises to eventually become the county's crown gem of public transportation.
"We are pleased to [celebrate] this great milestone of the project," said Sound Transit board member and Metropolitan King County Councilmember, Larry Phillips. "This marks the 70 percent completion of work with the project being on schedule. The methods used [at the Beacon Hill Station] were never used before at these depths. It is an engineering marvel."
While working and unprecedented depths has more to do with engineering methods than worker safety, said Sound Transit spokesman, Bruce Gray, construction safety is still of the utmost concern.
"Our first priority is to make sure the workers get home exactly as they came to work," said Gray.
While a safety-forward mentality fuels the work behind Sound Transit's project, an inflated number of recordable injuries still pains the three locations of the Beacon Hill worksite. Despite relentless efforts to decrease the average of just over 10 injuries per-200,000 worker hours. The national average is 6.3.
According to the Occupational Safety and Health Standards, Sound Transit must document each and every injury that occurs on the worksite. Recordable injuries, according to Gray, are any injuries that are outside of the assistance of the on-site first aid kit. If the injury does require medical attention, the worker is immediately taken to either a local clinic or Harborview Medical Center, depending on the severity of the injury. Under the contractor and the State Workers Compensation, workers are covered for any on-site injuries that may occur.
"The work we are doing is dangerous work," said Billy Hahn, safety manager of Obayashi Corporation, the project's general contractor. "Most of the hospital visits are precautionary."
The project's one and only fatality occurred on February 7 when a supply train carrying two men lost control and the passenger fell onto a steel support beam outside of the tunnel on the west entrance near Airport Way. According to Gray, the passenger - who was later identified as 49-year-old Obayashi employee, Michael Bruce Merryman - either jumped or was thrown off the six-car train just after 4 a.m. He was transported to Harborview Medical Center, but died after arriving at the hospital. The train's operator also suffered minor injuries, but was released from the hospital later in the day.
Since this isolated incident, all supply trains have been re-geared so the operation speed cannot exceed 10 miles per hour.
"A fatality is always a tough thing," said Hahn, who had never been a part of a project with a fatality in his 35-year career underground. "It really affects everyone on and around the worksite."
While most of the recordable injuries range from sprained ankle and wrist injuries, according to Robert Taaffe, Sound Transit construction safety manager, Sound Transit and Obayashi are intently focused on making all three sites injury-free with nearly 240 workers total.
At the beginning of each work shift, workers gather with the site safety manager for a pre-task analysis - or "Toolbox Talk" - that addresses everyday safety issues from housekeeping to recordable injuries from the previous shift and day. "Toolbox Talks" are designed to increase awareness of safety and address the conditions the group will be working on that particular day. With at most three, eight-hour shifts each day, "Toolbox Talks" are happening at least twice daily.
In addition to the daily meetings, Sound Transit officials such as Taaffe conduct weekly walk-through safety audits to ensure all safety concerns are addressed. Obayashi also conducts weekly "all hands" safety meetings at each of the three sites, to ensure their corporate and site safety specific plans are being enforced properly. New workers to the site are put through an extensive, eight-hour safety training before being paired with a more experienced worker familiar with the site.
As the project now looks to enter the second phase of the tunnel boring machine excavation, safety is the ultimate focus.
"Ultimately, it's Sound Transit's responsibility to make sure everyone's protected and safe," said Taaffe. "We are working very diligently to make sure we get that [recordable injury number] down to zero."
"Compared to the Hoover Dam," said Councilmember Phillips as he and some of the media were pulled up from 160 feet below surface, "we're light years ahead."
For more information on the Beacon Hill Station's progress visit www.soundtransit.org.
Central District writer Josh Sabrowsky may be reached via editor@sdistrictjournal.com. [[In-content Ad]]
