Mechanic Crushed When the Dozer He Was Lowering Shifted and Fell off the Jack - Massachusetts

Details

• Alternative Title:
  MA FACE Occupational Fatality Report
• Corporate Authors:
  Massachusetts Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Project (Massachusetts FACE) ; Massachusetts. Department of Public Health
• Description:
  On January 21, 2013, a 70-year-old male heavy equipment mechanic (victim) was fatally crushed while lowering a dozer. The victim had finished replacing the dozer's track adjuster and was attempting to lower the dozer back onto its track when the dozer shifted, fell off the bottle jack and onto the victim. After hearing a loud bang and the victim yelling for help, co-workers placed a call for emergency medical services (EMS) and started to free the victim by jacking the dozer back up. The local police and EMS arrived at the incident location within minutes. The victim was transported to a local hospital where he died of his injuries three days later. Contributing factors identified in this investigation included accessing the space underneath a raised dozer supported only by a bottle jack and working alone while manipulating heavy equipment. The Massachusetts FACE Program concluded that to prevent similar occurrences in the future, employers should: 1. Ensure that employees never place any portion of their body under a load only supported by a jack
  
  2. Ensure two people are assigned to tasks involving lifting and lowering of heavy equipment from start to finish
  
  and 3. Ensure equipment is visually inspected prior to each use, including inspecting safety warning labels to ensure they are legible.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Accidents, Occupational Construction Industry Manufacturing And Industrial Facilities Occupational Health Safety Safety Management Staff Development
• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Accident-potential Accident-prevention Demolition-industry Equipment-design Equipment-operators Equipment-reliability Injuries Injury-prevention Machine-operation Mechanics OSHA Region 1 Safety-education Safety-measures Safety-practices Safety-programs Task-performance Training Traumatic-injuries Trucking Warning-signs Work-practices

  More +
• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Construction ; Machine (All) ; Machine - Construction
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  State
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHSFACE13MA002
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  Massachusetts ; OSHA Region 1
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-6
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20046548
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2015-105622
• Citation:
  Morgantown, WV: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, FACE 13MA002, 2015 Mar ; :1-6
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2015
• Performing Organization:
  Massachusetts State Department of Public Health
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  23 - Construction - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  2005/07/01
• End Date:
  2026/06/30
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:6d448686dcc33be79cc127f4256edced4e34706e3a5b236bcd68f732e8653755e6b91b671ae56bcd6e61b401c8be11dd3aee5ede8f789f77c548012132caf08a
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/165047/cdc_165047_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 465.92 KB ]