Leading Aerial-Lift Catastrophe Attorneys Available to Discuss Equipment Operator Death at Ocean City, NJ Amusement Pier

Leading structural aerial-lift catastrophe attorneys and site-safety advocates from Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky P.C. are available to discuss Monday’s fatal incident at Gillian’s Wonderland Pier, Ocean City, NJ, that resulted in the death of an equipment operator who reportedly fell from the work platform of his mobile aerial lift while servicing the pier’s Ferris wheel. 

Aerial lifts—including boom lifts, scissor lifts and vertical mast lifts—are increasingly popular at construction sites and in other workplaces. Yet about 30 construction workers die each year in accidents involving aerial lifts, and an estimated 150 more are injured. Given the sheer size and weight of these giant pieces of equipment, the injuries are often catastrophic.

Attorney Robert J. Mongeluzzi, a national authority on high-reach lift equipment, said on behalf of SMB:

We are deeply sorry for this loss of life that, tragically and ironically, occurred during OSHA’s ‘Fall Safety Stand Down Week’, a solemn national safety program focused on promoting site safety and specifically preventing elevation fall-related workplace accidents. This fatality is yet another reminder that safety first is the highest priority at any work site, undergoing construction, demolition, or as in this instance, maintenance on a Ferris wheel.

SMB’s David L. Kwass,  who chairs a national lawyer’s group focused on litigating a wide range of crane and high-reach equipment accidents on behalf of victims, added, “We know from numerous past cases that there must be full accountability and transparency to precisely determine what happened, why it happened – which includes a full mechanical analysis of the equipment – and how a recurrence can be prevented at that and other sites where similar mobile boom-lift equipment is commonly used. One fall-from-elevation fatality is one too many; New Jersey has had dozens in recent years and this is an alarming trend that must be reversed for the protection of workers and the public.”

SMB has secured numerous multi-million verdicts and settlements for our clients, including:

$4,200,000 – Settlement for a worker crushed by a boom lift

$3,400,000 – Settlement for the operator of a scissor lift that tipped over

$9,000.000 – Electric Shock Case

$5,500,000 – Scaffold Accident Suit

$4,200,000 – Pipefitter Injured on Aerial Lift While Welding I-Beam

$3,000,000 – Aerial Lift Accident

$2,400,000 – Worker Who Fell from Defective Lift

$1,350,000 – Aerial Bucket Truck’s Cable Snaps, Causes Worker Injuries

SMB is widely recognized for successfully representing victims of a wide range of catastrophic aerial-lift incidents and started an organization that has provided legal assistance to scores of aerial lift victims. The firm is regarded as the most experienced construction accident lawyers in the country having handled more than 500 construction accident cases; the firm is currently among the lead plaintiffs’ counsel in last year’s Surfside high-rise condominium collapse near Miami that resulted in nearly 100 deaths, and previously represented families of loved ones killed in the Atlantic City Tropicana Parking Garage Collapse and the Philadelphia Salvation Army Building Collapse. 

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