By Colin Broderick
Updated: 2008-04-02 07:24

The recent crane collapses, which left seven dead in New York and two dead in Miami, have everyone glancing upward as they scurry past construction sites.

But when we actually think about what is going on above our heads every day, it is a miracle that there are not more horrendous accidents. Construction is a tricky business. Bad things happen, and they will continue to happen.

In 25 years of working in construction, I have witnessed plenty of things other than falling hammers, screws, an open utility knife, and 10 planks of wood that landed on the roof of my car 18 years ago, flattening it.

Toppling off ladders, losing a finger to a chop-saw - accidents are not just rites of passage for the new person; they are the niggling fear that every construction worker lives with as long as he or she is on the job.

I am reminded of Bill, a 70-year-old carpenter my brother and I once worked with. One Friday evening, we were standing around a table talking. Bill held up his two hands, proudly wriggling all 10 of his fingers, and declared that in more than 50 years of construction he had never so much as nicked himself on a blade.

My brother and I then went to wrap our tools as Bill started to saw a plank of wood. We were almost out the door when we heard a yelp. Bill was lucky. He did not cut all the way to the bone. Bill would still retire with all his fingers, but he would bear a scar to remind him that 50 years of experience did not exempt him from catastrophe.

These are minor injuries, or small potatoes, as we like to call them.

When something as big as a crane falls in New York City in the middle of the afternoon, casualties are a mathematical certainty. How it happened, though, will never be certain. Yes, people will be punished, payments will be made, lawmakers will perhaps introduce some new set of regulations - and in time, something like this will happen again.

Did you know that at least 20 men died in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, including the bridge's designer, John Roebling, who developed a fatal tetanus infection after his foot was crushed on site? Eight men died building the World Trade Center. And back in 1930, planning for the Empire State Building estimated that 100 lives would be lost during construction, roughly one person per floor. Fortunately, only five men were lost in the project.

Freak accidents will continue as long as buildings are built. This is the human element at work, and it is the human price we pay for progress.

Meanwhile, construction workers will sit around during their lunch breaks and share stories of close calls and the terrible things they have witnessed over the years. And then they will go back to work as usual.

The author is writer of Orangutan New York Times Syndicate

(China Daily 04/02/2008 page9)