Tractor operator backs into tree branch and is crushed against steering wheel.

Details

• Personal Author:
  Johnson, Wayne ; Rautiainen, Risto
• Corporate Authors:
  Iowa Fatality Assessment & Control Evaluation Program (Iowa FACE) ; University of Iowa. College of Medicine. Institute for Rural and Environmental Health
• Description:
  During the fall of 1998 a 65-year-old tractor operator was killed when he backed into a tree branch and was pinned between the branch and the tractor's steering wheel. The tractor was a late 50's model equipped with a front-end loader. The man was working for a trucking company which buys and resells corncobs. He was working alone loading corncobs into a grain truck at a private farm location when the injury occurred. The farm owner heard the tractor shut off in a normal fashion, and became concerned when he did not hear other sounds for several minutes. He went to check and found the victim pinned under a low-hanging branch of a pear tree. The man's chest was crushed against the steering wheel and he was obviously dead at the scene. The tractor had been traveling backwards, slightly downhill at the time it hit the tree, and was at a distance from the corn cob pile that was further than necessary for loading. It appears the victim drove too far back while working and ran into the tree branch, however the ignition had been turned off and it remains unclear exactly what happened. The tractor's brakes were checked by the owner of the trucking company and were found to be normal, in forward and reverse directions. Other controls on the tractor were also working properly. There was no ROPS on the tractor. Recommendations based on our investigation are as follows: 1. All tractors should have a rollover protective structure (ROPS). 2. A careful site assessment should be conducted to determine the best locations for material piles, trucks and loaders.
• Content Notes:
  Publication Date provided by FACE program
  
  not printed on the report.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Accidents, Occupational Agriculture Occupational Health Personal Protective Equipment Safety Safety Management Workplace
• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Accident-prevention Agricultural-machinery Agricultural-processes Agricultural-workers Injuries Injury-prevention OSHA Region 7 Personal-protective-equipment Protective-equipment Protective-measures Safety-education Safety-equipment Safety-measures Safety-monitoring Tractors Traumatic-injuries Work-analysis Work-areas Work-operations Work-performance Work-practices

  More +
• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Agriculture
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  State
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHSFACE98IA058
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  Iowa ; OSHA Region 7
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  7 pdf pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20028297
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2009-106286
• 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 98IA058, 1999 Mar ; :1-4
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1999
• Performing Organization:
  Iowa Department of Public Health
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  48-49 - Transportation and Warehousing - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  1992/09/30
• End Date:
  2006/08/31
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:89ba4a4e330a1b533567792c5cd7d2cf9ddc9b35e6f713301f9992fc66dad31350ebd1c3b7bf77e1427b8bdefe2a80765be78ba806df16e4d00709305c85ea13
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/166808/cdc_166808_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 851.87 KB ]