Editorials
During Safety Week 2026, Recognize and Stress Hazards
There are jobsite hazards that not only are hard to recognize, but also are sometimes the result of trying to work more efficiently and safely. That’s why with Construction Safety Week 2026, May 4-8, emphasizing high-energy hazard recognition, we are thinking of Franklin Allen Burke Jr., a 47-year-old union laborer who died last Sept. 25 working at the Airport Access Road in Kenner, La., as part of a crew for Boh Bros.
A member of Laborers’ International Local 99 who grew up in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, he had been employed by the contractor for 25 years, was known as “Big Burke” and was a father, son, husband and brother. According to federal safety officials, his crew was using a vacuum excavator, which is a truck equipped with a tank and powerful suction hose, to speed work that would otherwise involve laborious hand or machine digging and is especially valuable in exposing underground utilities before construction begins. Another oft-used tool is a wand that releases high pressure water or air. Exactly how Burke died is not clear, except that it involved a crushing hazard and the truck’s extendable hose reel, said a U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspector.
Vacuum excavators have been used for many years and their hazards are well-known. Their tanks can be raised like a dump-truck bed and hoses and wands can exert powerful suction or high pressure air and water streams.
An ingenious aspect of some models is the ability to extend the hose reel in front of the cab from the truck fender and rotate it to better position the hose to reach the material. Some models even have controls on the front of the truck reel so operators can stay within the width of the truck, facing the machine, and do not have to venture near traffic on the sides.
There are always pinch points and crushing hazards with large and heavy truck equipment— but in using the vacuum excavator hose reel with controls that can shift its position, there is a potential danger to anyone around it or who is positioned between the truck front fender and reel.
Safety Week is a good time for employers to help field crews perceive hazards in workplaces that have become so familiar to them that perils often are overlooked.
In one safety internet video we reviewed, the narrator says the control panel for all functions of one truck model’s vacuum excavator are on the back side of the hose reel—outside the arc of the rotating reel—so the operator “is not wedged between the hose reel and the bumper when the reel is rotated to the side of the truck.”
OSHA did not explain in its accident report, or respond in time to an ENR query, exactly what created the hose reel pinch point that killed Franklin Allen Burke Jr. Our point is that Safety Week is an opportunity for employers to help field crews perceive high-energy hazards that are hard to spot because they are part of a familiar workplace where it is easy to overlook the peril.
Looking for quick answers on construction and engineering topics?
Try Ask ENR, our new smart AI search tool.
Ask ENR →
“Hazardous energy comes in many forms,” explains a Safety Week video, “and can include gravity, motion, mechanical, electrical, pressure, chemical and temperature.”
Constructionsafetyweek.com is full of training resources. Using them can help reveal hazards not easily seen—and can save lives.
_ENRready.webp?height=200&t=1745646460&width=200 "Hensel Phelps CEO Michael Choutka")