Heavy equipment operator dies when excavator slips down a hill and becomes buried in mud in California

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  California Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Program (CA/FACE) ; California. Department of Health Services. Occupational Health Branch
• Description:
  A 39-year-old heavy equipment operator (decedent) died when his excavator slid over a hill and was buried in mud. The decedent was scooping mud from a desilting pond with the excavator bucket and placing the mud in a scraper/loader. He was working at the edge of a 20-foot embankment with his tracks parallel to the edge of the hill. The decedent had just dumped a load of mud into the scraper/loader. As he swung the bucket around to pick up another load of mud, the track of the excavator nearest the scraper/loader lifted off the ground. As the decedent was attempting to stabilize the excavator, it slid down the side of the hill and the cab side was buried in the mud. Before the heavy equipment operator could be extricated from the cab, he was suffocated by the mud. The CA/FACE investigator concluded that, in order to prevent future occurrences, employers should: 1. ensure when equipment operators are working at the edge of an embankment the tracks of their machine are placed a safe distance away from the edge. 2. implement a formal, written program that provides the correct procedure for operating an excavator.
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Accidents, Occupational Occupational Health Personal Protective Equipment Safety Safety Management Workplace
• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Accident-prevention Equipment-operators Injuries Injury-prevention Occupational-safety-programs OSHA Region 9 Protective-measures Safety-education Safety-equipment Safety-measures Safety-monitoring Safety-programs Traumatic-injuries Work-analysis Work-areas Work-operations Work-performance Work-practices

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• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Construction ; Machine (All) ; Machine - Construction
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  State
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHSFACE97CA005
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  California ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  5 pdf pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20027150
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2007-112045
• 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 97CA005, 1997 Aug ; :1-5
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1997
• Performing Organization:
  California Department of Health Services
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  48-49 - Transportation and Warehousing - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  1991/09/30
• End Date:
  2006/08/31
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:3d729f6915e31692fe2db20a99f5c83cfe9345f75b0f271f62323a2532d740ba868d093d3639822f9d8f7c4d4dd0c335f95012a3f70624b62541c8bfae143286
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/168993/cdc_168993_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 15.87 KB ]