Hispanic Worker Dies When a Sixty-Foot Tree Falls onto the Hydraulic Excavator He Was Operating to Clear Land - Tennessee: FACE 2009-02

Details

• Personal Author:
  Lutz, Virginia
• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) Program
• Description:
  On February 7, 2009, a 28-year-old Hispanic worker suffered fatal injuries when a tree he was attempting to fell struck the cab of the hydraulic excavator he was operating. At the time of the incident, the victim was working for a site development company that was preparing land to construct a parking lot and driveway for a golf course. He was operating the hydraulic excavator to push down trees by first digging around the base of the tree to loosen the root system, placing the bucket of the hydraulic excavator against the trunk of the tree and extending the boom outward to push the tree away from the hydraulic excavator. There were no witnesses to the incident ; however, it is believed that the victim was engaging the boom to push a sixty-foot tall sweet gum tree over when it fell backwards onto the cab. The weight of the tree caved in the cab's roof and trapped the victim inside. According to the county medical examiner's office, the victim's death was due to mechanical asphyxia caused by being pinned in a contorted position.
• Subjects:
  • Accidents, Occupational
  • Fatal Outcome
  • Forestry
  • Motor Vehicles
  • Occupational Health
  • Safety
• Keywords:
  • OSHA Region 4
  • Accident-analysis
  • Accident-prevention
  • Accidents
  • Injuries
  • Injury-prevention
  • Traumatic-injuries
  • Engineering-controls
  • Control-technology
  • Work-operations
  More +
• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  All ; Construction ; Hispanic ; Hispanic - Construction ; Logging ; Machine (All) ; Machine - Construction ; Foreign Born Workers ; Prevention through Design (PtD) ; Temporary Worker
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  NIOSH (In-House)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHFACE200902
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• 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:
  11 pdf pages
• Contributor:
  Romano, Nancy T. ; Smidt, Matthew
• Volume:
  2009
• Issue:
  2
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20039435
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2011-113462
• 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
• NORA Priority Area:
  Construction
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  23 - Construction - (NAICS 2022)
• Start Date:
  2009/02/07
• Resource Number:
  FACE 2009-02
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/167261/cdc_167261_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 304.75 KB]
• Collection(s):
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) Program ; National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:afec15cf72c1fd11ad22c3390b3845861a5286f8fb1061458ad97e8f3362331752ea8f163c61963879f70515376b92ce7ee1717c52b1846c30b74307d50195ee