New Jersey Man Killed By Falling Tape Measure At Construction Site

479px-Construction_WorkersA bizarre tragedy has struck at a construction site in New Jersey where Gary Anderson, 58, was hit and killed by a falling tape measure from 50 stories above. The one-pound tape measure came off a construction worker and hit Anderson who had just stopped to speak with another worker in a pick up truck.

The implausibility of the accident was magnified by the fact that the tape measure first dislodged from the belt of the worker and then hit construction equipment some 10 feet off the ground — only to ricochet and hit Gary Anderson.

There were so many factors in the chain of events that had to occur precisely to produce this result from a brief chat to the angle of the ricochet.

Obviously, there was negligence in the loss of the tape measure but the danger of falling objects is a long-standing danger for construction sites. Moreover, Anderson was not wearing a hard hat — a basic safety requirement at all such sites. Anderson worked for an independent trucking company delivering product for Charlotte, N.C. based National Gypsum. He was delivering sheet rock.

The absence of the hard hat would make a lawsuit difficult, though there can be recovery under worker’s compensation for the family.

Source: NJ

117 thoughts on “New Jersey Man Killed By Falling Tape Measure At Construction Site”

  1. “Obviously, there was negligence in the loss of the tape measure….”

    You are kidding me JT right? That must be your attorney brain doing the talking.
    Not the one that lives in the real world.

  2. That is exactly like a case in my Torts class. Criminal Law was by far my favorite because of the professor, a fine, dignified African-American scholar who I bonded with yes this is possible even in the first year of law school. That guy was way too nice to try to scare us like the other Professors except Maggs.

    1. Michael – if that works, let me know. It would beat the hell out of the non-fiction diet I am on. 🙁 Right now everything tastes like cardboard.

  3. Haz, Thanks. You know, when an august attorney tells you you’re fictional you tend to believe it. With the election over we need to get together in Lake Mills like we discussed. Have some fictional adult beverages and faux food.

  4. I am likewise a fictional character. Right now I’m wearing a fictional tie-dyed shirt, a fictional remnant of my fictional college years. I’m near the fictional fireplace, sipping a fiction tumbler of Rittenhouse Rye Whiskey, feeling very fictional, and listening to fictional Jefferson Starship sing about fictional wooden ships.

    Black sails knifing through the pitchblende night
    Away from the radioactive landmass madness
    From the silver-suited people searching out
    Uncontaminated food and shelter on the shores
    No glowing metal on our ship of wood only
    Free happy crazy people naked in the universe
    We speak earth talk
    Go ride the music

    If you smile at me you know I will understand
    Cause that is something everybody everywhere does
    In the same language
    I can see by your coat my friend that you’re from the other side
    There’s just one thing I got to know
    Can you tell me please who won

    You must try some of my purple berries
    I been eating them for six or seven weeks now
    Haven’t got sick once
    Probably keep us both alive

    Wooden ships on the water very free and easy
    Easy you know the way it’s supposed to be
    Silver people on the shoreline leave us be
    Very free and easy
    Sail away where the mornin sun goes high
    Sail away where the wind blows sweet and young birds fly

    Take a sister by her hand
    Lead her far from this barren land
    Horror grips us as we watch you die
    All we can do is echo your anguished cry and
    Stare as all you human feelings die
    We are leaving
    You don’t need us

    Go and take a sister by her hand
    Lead her far from this foreign land
    Somewhere where we might laugh again
    We are leaving
    You don’t need us

    Sailing ships on the water very free and easy
    Easy you know the way it’s supposed to be
    Silver people on the shoreline leave us be
    Very free
    And gone
    No c’mon
    Go ride the music
    C’mon ride it child. (end)

    Doesn’t it make you feel fictional? See the fiction, feel the fiction, be the fiction.

  5. Looks like Nick is really a fictional character.

    I can verify that. Nick and I once met for a fictional lunch at a fictional restaurant in a fictional city, and he was clearly fictional. Totally fictional. He picked up the fictional tab, and was gracious to my fictional wife.

    During our fictional conversation, we spoke of fictional blogs and fictional beings, and unicorns, and rainbows.

    So yes, fiction. It’s fictions all the way down.

  6. Sad case; a man died. I doubt that wearing a hard hat would have saved his life. That tape measure held a lot of kinetic energy after dropping five hundred feet, even after it ricocheted off of another surface. Al parties will be sued. The manufacturer of the tape measure probably has the deepest pockets and will pay the highest price. Plaintiff’s attorneys will argue that said tape measure was negligently manufactured, as it lacked a system to hold it in place in a user’s pocket or on a user’s belt. A jury will agree. Damages will be assessed. The employer of the worker from whom the tape measure slipped away will be turned inside out by OSHA, whose biggest enterprise is the income stream derived by taking large penalties from employers.

    And the dead guy will still be dead, and his family will get but a fraction of the damages awarded by a jury.

  7. Paul, Peter Jennings did not even have a high school education. He dropped out of high school when he was 17. But, Jennings was a liberal darling so that information was buried. I knew his background and it mattered little to me because he was obviously intelligent and knew his stuff. Hypocrisy.

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