Fatal Incident Summary Report: Falling Tree Limb Strikes Logger: FACE 83-05

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) Program
• Description:
  The case of a logger who suffered fatal head injuries after being struck on the head by a falling limb while select cutting mature timber was examined. On May 6, 1983, four workers were involved in cutting a 30-inch diameter tree. The workers included the owner/supervisor, a heavy equipment operator, a trimmer, and a general laborer. They were standing approximately 25 feet away from the tree at a 60-degree angle to its side as it fell. In the process of falling a dried upper limb of the tree brushed a neighboring tree causing it to snap off and fall vertically, striking the general laborer in the head and killing him. The victim was the most inexperienced of the four-member work team and was reported to not have been looking up at the time of the accident. It was concluded that the workers were in the danger zone of the falling tree and should have stationed themselves at a 45-degree angle to the rear of the falling tree.
• Subjects:
  • Accidents, Occupational
  • Fatal Outcome
  • Forestry
  • Nervous System
  • Occupational Health
  • Safety
• Keywords:
  • FACE-83-005
  • Accident-analysis
  • Logging-workers
  • Occupational-accidents
  • Head-injuries
  • Traumatic-injuries
• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  All ; Logging
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  NIOSH (In-House)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHFACE8305
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Report
• Place as Subject:
  West Virginia ; OSHA Region 3
• 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:
  2 pdf pages
• Volume:
  1983
• Issue:
  5
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00217759
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB94-151495
• 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:
  1983
• NORA Priority Area:
  Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  11 - Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting - (NAICS 2022)
• Start Date:
  1983/05/06
• Resource Number:
  FACE 83-05
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/167494/cdc_167494_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 168.67 KB]
• Collection(s):
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) Program ; National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:d56c3f0c9c93fc605e207895314f5941da7b4a65924a66273e821d781aaf7e491c6eb86e9ade3d4b6ddf9c9b0dc4d851dfb768a93dbe5241c1af7c2100bbab54