WorkSafe New Zealand is underscoring the dangers of skylights, after a 14-year-old roofer was seriously injured falling through one in Hawke’s Bay.
The teenager fell eight metres through a skylight and directly onto a concrete floor while working for Ironhide Roofing Limited, which has been sentenced in the Napier District Court.
The December 2020 incident left the victim hospitalised, suffering from multiple fractures.
“Working from height is a well-known risk in the construction industry, and there is no excuse for not putting proper protections in place,” says WorkSafe’s national manager of investigations, Hayden Mander.
“This incident has had a significant effect on the victim’s health, and could easily have been prevented with some better planning.”
The worker had been told not to walk on the skylights as they were brittle, but a WorkSafe investigation found the advice didn’t go far enough nor meet industry guidelines.
The investigation also found a barrier should have been in place to restrict workers from inadvertently standing on a skylight in the older, weaker part of the roof.
Allowing someone aged under 15 to work on a construction site is a breach of the Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016.
