Dump Truck Driver Dies After Being Entangled In Power-Take-Off Drive Shaft

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  Kentucky Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Program (KY FACE) ; University of Kentucky. College of Public Health. Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center
• Description:
  During the fall of 2006, a 25-year-old male company dump truck driver (decedent) died when he became entangled in the drive shaft of the power-take-off pump (PTO) underneath a dump truck. He and four other dump truck drivers were waiting to have their trucks filled with asphalt when one of the other drivers (Driver 1) began having difficulty with the bed of his truck raising and lowering properly. Another driver (Driver 2) attempted to assist Driver 1 with the problem, but was unsuccessful. Driver 1 decided to inform the plant manager (Owner 1) of the situation and request assistance from the company's mechanics to fix the problem. While Driver 1 was speaking with Owner 1, the decedent (Driver 3), unbeknownst to anyone else, crawled under the dump truck of Driver 1 to see if he could fix the problem. As Driver 3 lay under the idling truck's spinning PTO shaft, his coat sleeve became entangled in the grease fitting on the front universal joint. He was twisted onto the shaft and under the bed of the dump truck. When Driver 1 returned to his truck to wait for assistance from the company mechanic, he found the decedent caught in the PTO drive shaft underneath the truck. Driver 1 yelled to Owner 1 in the tower to call emergency medical services to the scene. While Owner 1 called 911, he called Owner 2 to the scene. Owner 2 found the decedent entangled in the PTO shaft and with the assistance from Driver 4, they proceeded to cut his clothing to free him from the shaft. Owner 2 tried to resuscitate Driver 3 (decedent) while EMS was enroute. Emergency medical services arrived six minutes later, determined the driver was in critical condition, and notified emergency air care. As emergency medical personnel placed Driver 3 in an ambulance and transported him to a nearby field where the air ambulance waited, he died. Air transport was cancelled and the local coroner was contacted who arrived and declared Driver 3 dead at the scene. To prevent future occurrences of similar incidents, the following recommendations have been made: 1. Ensure that trucks are turned in the "off" position and keys removed, prior to driver exiting and leaving the motor vehicle unattended. 2. Employers should provide comprehensive safety training for all newly hired personnel including temporary and substitute drivers before they are allowed to work in the field. 3. Loose clothing should not be worn while repairing machinery. 4. Employers should require that operators or other competent persons perform daily safety checks on the mobile equipment prior to operating them using an expanded Department of Transportation Inspection form. 5. Educate employees about the hazards of PTO's and ensure they do not crawl under, on, or over unguarded power take-off (PTO) drivelines while the PTO is operating. 6. Consideration should be given to engineering machine guards for truck power take-off
  
  equipment should be designed or retrofitted to shield any open, unguarded power take-off drivelines.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Accidents, Occupational Occupational Health Personal Protective Equipment Protective Clothing Safety Safety Management Staff Development
• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Accident-potential Accident-prevention Clothing Equipment-design Equipment-operators Equipment-reliability Injury-prevention Machine-guarding OSHA Region 4 Personal-protection Personal-protective-equipment Protective-equipment Safety-clothing Safety-equipment Safety-measures Safety-practices Training Traumatic-injuries Truck-drivers Trucking

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• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Motor Vehicles ; Motor Vehicles - Dump Truck
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  State
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHSFACE06KY079
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  Kentucky ; OSHA Region 4
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-12
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20033449
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2008-107662
• 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 06KY079, 2008 Jan ; :1-12
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2008
• Performing Organization:
  University of Kentucky
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  31-33 - Manufacturing - (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:a5d05b9ee42852cb61a5535a6bcedaf5d8c1e1addebc03b74c621c881e7a8ae1efba67087a2845975176fb6c26741188ce8590456adf91fdbed8a57a9b59d716
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/166197/cdc_166197_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 437.01 KB ]