Solid Waste Compost Facility Worker Dies, Body Is Recovered in Digester Tube - Tennessee: FACE 2010-01

Details

• Personal Author:
  Lutz, Virginia ; Yorgason, Andrew
• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) Program
• Description:
  On July 22, 2010, a 50-year-old worker was found deceased in a compost digester tube at a solid waste facility. The victim worked as a picker on a tipping floor. His duties were to separate compostable from non-compostable trash that was unloaded onto the tipping floor by residential and commercial waste haulers. Once the trash was separated, the compostable material was pushed into an open digester pit by a co-worker operating a front-end loader. A hydraulic ram located near the pit floor would then push the material into the digester tube. In this incident, the victim's shift had begun at approximately 7:00 am. Approximately three hours later coworkers became concerned because he was not at his workstation. Public safety officials were notified and arrived on the scene at approximately 12:15 pm. Emergency workers searched the worksite and surrounding area, as well as the accessible areas of the digester tubes. Three days later, the victim's body was discovered in one of the tubes approximately ten feet from the loading end. Note: Subsequent to the NIOSH field investigation, the medical examiner ruled that the victim had died of natural causes related to heart disease. However, since the investigation identified the presence of workplace safety and/or health hazards with the potential to cause serious injury to workers at solid waste facilities, it was decided to report the investigative findings in hopes of providing injury prevention information to employers and workers with similar work environments. Factors that may contribute to worker injury at solid waste facilities include procedures that place workers-on-foot near moving equipment, unguarded floor openings, limited communication, and visual contact with mobile equipment operators, and working conditions that may include high concentrations of toxic gases and high temperatures.
• Subjects:
  • Accidents, Occupational
  • Cardiovascular System
  • Fatal Outcome
  • Occupational Health
  • Personal Protective Equipment
  • Safety
• Keywords:
  • OSHA Region 4
  • Accident-analysis
  • Accident-prevention
  • Accidents
  • Equipment-operators
  • Injuries
  • Injury-prevention
  • Occupational-safety-programs
  • Protective-measures
  • Safety-education
  More +
• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  All ; Machine (All) ; Machine - General ; Other ; Energy Production ; Prevention through Design (PtD) ; Waste Management and Remediation Services
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  NIOSH (In-House)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHFACE201001
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Report
• Place as Subject:
  Tennessee ; OSHA Region 4
• 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:
  12 pdf pages
• Volume:
  2010
• Issue:
  1
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20039495
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2018-101036
• Citation:
  Morgantown, : U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2011
• Performing Organization:
  West Virginia University
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  56 - Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services - (NAICS 2022)
• Start Date:
  2005/07/01
• End Date:
  2020/06/30
• Resource Number:
  FACE 2010-01
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/167260/cdc_167260_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.69 MB]
• Collection(s):
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) Program ; National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:1be6bc71bdc7dbf81554104ee7534b87d624a671147fcadcbbad26dd9a469972130d3de686d76055358f6918be5a0977af96270fd40feea262078e7b70af7583