City Worker Dies when Struck and Dragged by Mobile Equipment in Ohio

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Description:
  The case of a 61 year old male city worker who died when he fell from a trailer mounted leaf vacuum while engaged in sweeping tree leaves from the street was examined. Employees were given written and verbal instructions on safe work practices. Training was provided on the job. On the day of the accident the victim was a member of a four man crew involved in collecting leaves from the city streets. The victim was riding on a bucket seat and pushing leaves into the intake. As the unit crossed an intersection the intake housing struck the sidewalk with sufficient force to gouge the concrete. The victim apparently dropped his pitchfork and either fell from the seat or exited the seat in an attempt to recover the pitchfork. As the trailer moved forward, the victim was knocked down by the seat, struck by the angle iron mounting bracket, and dragged about 44 feet down the asphalt roadway. The victim died from cardiopulmonary arrest about 17 hours after the accident as a result of multiple traumatic injuries and hemorrhage. The leaf vacuum unit was about 20 years old and was not designed to carry a rider. About 15 years ago, city employees modified the unit by adding a seat at the front to simplify work operations. No consideration was given to the potential danger posed by riding unrestrained on this seat. The unit had been used successfully for these 15 years. Had footrests and a seat belt been added to the equipment, the above fatality may have been prevented. It was recommended that potential safety problems be considered before modification of equipment.
• Content Notes:
  Publication date provided by the authoring office. There is no publication date indicated on the resource.
• Subjects:
  Accidents, Occupational Maintenance Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Equipment-operators FACE-88-10 Maintenance-workers OSHA Region 5 Safety-research Traumatic-injuries
• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Machine (All) ; Machine - Manufacturing ; Prevention through Design (PtD)
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  NIOSH (In-House)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHFACE8810
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  Ohio ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSR - Division of Safety Research
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  2 pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00186166
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB89-188254
• Citation:
  Morgantown, WV: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, FACE 88-10, 1988 Jul ; :1-5
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1988
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  48-49 - Transportation and Warehousing - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  1987/11/16
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:20a600bbcb88b35fa7a596c95f12e2e23a4a1e58528e452157c5c9484634604d29f4b942e66bd03271ae8537ce84164a2b6eaaa7b539588cfeab91d6a022317c
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/164429/cdc_164429_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 190.94 KB ]