Safety first at PMC site: Workers celebrate milestoneSafety first at PMC site: Workers celebrate milestone
By: Medical Leader Staff/Press Release/Other Published: 03/30/2012
Medical Leader | MARY MEADOWS
SAFETY ON THE JOB: Jason A. Wright, Messer Construction Company project manager, thanks construction workers for helping the company maintain a safe work site at Pikeville Medical Center during a barbeque picnic lunch on March 22. The project’s Total reportable Incident Rate is 0.0 — below the national average of 2.9.
PIKEVILLE — Messer Construction, the company leading the construction of a new parking garage and medical office facility at Pikeville Medical Center, celebrated a safety milestone last week.
Kevin Whitaker, the company’s environmental health and safety director, reports that Messer employees and local and regional contract companies working at the site have provided more than 110,000 hours without a “lost-time accident.”
“It’s amazing,” Whitaker said. “The reason this is such a big deal is that we have had well over 526 people working at this site and we have not had a lost-time accident.”
The project’s Total Reportable Incident Rate, or TRIR, lets Messer measure how the project compares, in terms of reportable accidents, to the rest of the nation.
The national average is 2.9. To date, the PMC project’s TRIR is zero.
“We have multiple activities going on during the day and there’s a lot of opportunity for risk,” Whitaker said. “The project managers of each team have done a great job planning and, also, the workers themselves have done a great job, too.”
Whitaker and Messer’s Project Executive Jason A. Wright celebrated the milestone by providing a free barbeque lunch for employees on March 22.
“This is a celebration to say ‘thank you’ because there’s a lot of work and effort that goes into making a safe working environment,” Whitaker said.
Wright encouraged and thanked the workers.
“Everybody should be very proud. Give yourself a hand,” he said. “We do appreciate your effort. It doesn’t go unnoticed.”
In June 2011, the Kentucky Labor Cabinet’s office of Occupational Safety and Health entered into a site-based construction partnership agreement with PMC and Messer.
Whitaker said that partnership, the Construction Partnership Program, helps maintain safety.
“Kentucky’s OSHA, its education and training department, Messer Construction and PMC all entered into an agreement that we will utilize this project as a training ground to educate everyone about Kentucky OSHA and what the standards are,” Whitaker said.
The partnership provides safety training for Messer employees and contract employees who work at the site. Every two months, OSHA officials visit the work site and conduct safety and health surveys.
It gives construction workers an opportunity to learn how to improve safety standards and emphasizes that workers maintain safety standards, even if following those standards takes additional time.
Founded in 1932, Messer is a commercial construction company that specialized in building for health care, higher education and life sciences.
In projects nationwide, the company strives to make safety one of its top priorities.
The following companies have worked with Messer Construction on the PMC expansion project:
Rose Builders, Mountain Enterprises, Elliot Contracting, Tom Wright Drilling, Wrightway Concrete, Wells Concrete, Brooks Electrical Service, Rays Fencing, Artisan Industrial Metals, CC & E Concrete Construction, Charter Construction, Cleveland Construction, Flexible Lifeline Systems, KVWV Traffic Control, Lykins Reinforcing, M&W Drilling, Metromont Corporation, Structural Unlimited, Kame Construction, Omni Fireproofing, Pioneer Cladding & Glazing, Russo, Simplex Grinnell, Steel Service Corporation, Columbu Steel Erectors, T & C Construction and Woodford Excavation & Transportation.
The construction project at PMC will create a 931-space parking garage and an 11-story medical office building to house clinical and medical office space, outpatient surgery and other facilities.
The entire project, which also includes additional hospital renovations, will cost $100 million and is expected to be completed in 2013.
Medical Leader | DEBBIE ROLEN
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