Meat Packing Plant Employee Dies After Fall From Platform – South Carolina

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) Program
• Description:
  This report concerned the death of a 41-year-old male meat packing facility worker who was employed at a wholesale beef processing and packing site, which had been in operation for 50 years and employed 170 workers. The victim and two coworkers were working in the knocking area at the time of the incident. The three men were alternating the jobs of chasing the cattle to the knocking area and knocking and slaughtering the cattle. The victim and a coworker began to argue. The victim either lost his balance or was bumped and fell off the knocking platform. The third worker saw the victim fall and called to a supervisor. The victim was found lying on his back with his feet on the steps
  
  he had his hard hat on and was bleeding from a cut on the left side of his head. The victim died 9 days later. Records revealed that the victim had a history of seizures. One of the emergency medical technicians indicated that the victim displayed symptoms indicative of a seizure. Toxicology results indicated the victim had a blood alcohol level of 0.24. He had been fired in 1992 for carrying alcohol into the facility but had been later rehired. Recommendations included guarding all sides of elevated work platforms, monitoring employees for impaired behavior, and offering employee assistance programs to workers whose job performance becomes impaired due to medical or behavioral problems.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Accidents, Occupational Livestock Nervous System Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis FACE-94-09 Head-injuries OSHA Region 4 Safety-research Slaughterhouses Substance-abuse Traumatic-injuries
• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Falls
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  NIOSH (In-House)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHFACE9409
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  South Carolina ; 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:
  3 pdf pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00223312
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB95-171211
• 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:
  1994
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  31-33 - Manufacturing - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  1994/02/12
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:00d5d652a55cff7d9395c85cd5fd0fc6637f5d169641ff26291abc34dc875d0883609c362ad9c86e54069372a091e3bccb5d33215ce49546cbffc1cb3f4fae82
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/167465/cdc_167465_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 258.98 KB ]