A man suffered severe injuries Thursday, October 29, after falling roughly 50 feet through a skylight in the roof of a WinCo store on Plaza Parkway in Modesto, according to the Modesto Fire Department. He landed on materials stacked on product racks inside the store before falling the rest of the way to the floor, officials said.
The man was taken to a nearby hospital with moderate to major injuries, officials told CBS News Sacramento. A witness, Nick Maynard, identified the injured person as a man who had been working on the roof at the time of the fall.
Scene Inside the Store During the Fall
Maynard told the outlet that the man landed on alcohol products before falling to the floor, and that store lights were pulled down during the incident.
It remains unclear what caused the man to fall through the skylight. CBS News Sacramento said it reached out to both WinCo and the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health for more information following the incident.
What California Rules Require Near Skylights
California workplace-safety regulations address exactly this kind of hazard. Under a rule enforced by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, any employee approaching within six feet of a skylight must be protected from falling through the opening by one of several specified safety methods. Whether that standard applies to the work being done on the WinCo roof, and whether it was followed, remain unclear.
Falls through skylights are a recognized hazard nationally. NIOSH has noted that fatal falls can result from a failure to provide adequate guarding and fall protection around skylights, skylight openings and other roof openings. A September item from Safe At Work California similarly pointed to inadequate training, missing pre-site hazard assessments, and unguarded or unprotected skylights as common contributing factors in such falls.
Similar Incidents Elsewhere
The Modesto fall adds to a string of recent skylight-related incidents reported across the West. In Washington state, a contractor was fined $48,803 after a roofer was killed falling through a skylight, as reported by Insurance Journal. KIRO 7 News Seattle also reported on the same case, in which the state's Department of Labor and Industries cited a Wapato roofing company after a worker died in a similar fall. Washington regulators have more broadly been targeting roofing fall hazards in cases involving worker deaths, serious injuries, repeat violations and subcontractor safety failures, per Roofing Contractor. Elsewhere in California, a child was transported to a local trauma center after falling through the roof of a San Luis Obispo grocery store in July, according to The Tribune.
The man's condition and whether the skylight involved had any guards or covers remain unclear.
