One Of The Hazards Of Welding A Single-Membrane Commercial Roof Is That You Must Work Backwards

On October 6, 1999,[2] Nolan Keane, an eighteen year-old from Minnesota was returning to work from his lunch at Wendy’s.  As an autopsy would later show, Nolan’s lunch included a cheeseburger, French fries and a Coke.  Nolan Keane was employed by Single Ply Systems, Inc., a Minnesota based commercial roofing company which sends its work crews out across the United States. 

On this particular job, Nolan and his brother, Kevin, were working on the Technicolor warehouse building in Camarillo, California.   Nolan was on the third week of what he had told friends and family was “the best job ever.”  They worked on the roof during the day and at night Kevin and Nolan sat by a bonfire on the California beach while Nolan played his guitar.

p>Nolan climbed the forty-two foot ladder to the rooftop of the Technicolor warehouse and surveyed the view below.  He loved it.  As he stripped off his shirt, he noticed a four by eight sheet of blue insulation that had blown away and he went to retrieve it.  Nolan picked up the insulation and he, too, was caught by the wind and the insulation carried him like a sail across the roof.  Being blown backwards, pushed across the roof, he didn’t see the open skylight behind him.  

Although we will never know what he was thinking, he must have been surprised when his foot caught the four-inch lip of a skylight and he tumbled backwards.  He probably didn’t feel much when he landed headfirst on the cement floor forty-two feet below.  Occupational Safety & Health investigator, Mack Matthews, told the author that although he himself had been a medic in Vietnam, he had never seen so much blood fly so far.  Along with the blood the thoughts, hopes and life of a young worker scattered across the floor.

What makes this story disgraceful is that it is not unusual.  Ironically, exactly two weeks prior to Nolan’s “accident,” his brother, Kevin, also fell backwards through an uncovered skylight working for the same employer on the same job site on the same section of roof.  Kevin Keane fell backwards as he stood to stretch while welding a roof seam.  The roofers knew the skylights posed a risk and they used a “buddy system” to watch each other’s backs. 

One of the hazards of welding a single-membrane commercial roof is that you must work backwards.  On that day, however, Kevin’s buddy was distracted and didn’t realize that Kevin had backed up to one of the many uncovered skylights.  His fall was broken by a stack of wooden pallets and he suffered fractured vertebrae, a cracked pelvis, and a crushed heel.  Miraculously, Kevin lived.

Nothing was done[3] to cover the skylights after Kevin Keane’s fall and two weeks later his brother would fall to his death.  When questioned by this author on September 21, 1999, as to why the skylight hadn’t been covered, Joseph Elder, the president of Single Ply, responded, “Yeah, they really should be.”[4]  Single Ply Systems knew they had a dangerous workplace.  The Keane brothers were not this employer’s first injury or their first fatality[5], nor were they the last.[6]