Could This Have Been You? On average, 5,000 to 6,000 workers are killed each year. Learn from the following reports of real workplace fatalities to avoid a similar fate. An apprentice ironworker was killed when she fell through an unprotected vent shaft. The 38-year-old victim was near the end of her three-year apprenticeship program and had worked at this construction site for a few months. The construction site was a large multi-story building that had several subcontractors working at the time. She was working alone on the third level of the building, preparing to weld, and was positioning her equipment between two walls […]