DPW Employee Dies After Falling Off The Trailer Hitch of a Leaf Vacuum

Details

• Personal Author:
  Bost, Patrick ; Bresnitz, Eddy A. ; Gerwel, Barbara ; Lefkowitz, Daniel ; Ludwig, Gary ; O'Hagan, Emily ; Schill, Donald P. ; Valiante, David J.
• Corporate Authors:
  New Jersey Fatality Assessment & Control Evaluation Project (NJ FACE) ; New Jersey. Department of Health and Senior Services. Occupational Health Service
• Description:
  On November 25, 2003, a 38-year-old municipal Department of Public Works (DPW) employee was killed when he fell from a trailer hitch while riding a leaf vacuum that was being towed down a residential street. The victim and his co-worker were assigned to vacuum piles of loose leaves left by the side of the road by the residents of the town. The vacuum was a large, diesel-powered machine mounted on a trailer and towed by a DPW dump truck. The trailer hitch had been modified with a small, diamond-plate "seat" for the vacuum operator while moving between the leaf piles. The victim was sitting on this seat as the truck turned down a street and alongside cars that were parked on the side of the road. The large rubber vacuum hose that hung from the machine struck and damaged several of the cars. During the collision, the victim fell from the trailer, possibly while trying to hold or grab the loose hose. He fell to the roadway and was run over by the trailer. NJ FACE investigators recommend following these safety guidelines to prevent similar incidents: 1. Employers should follow the recommendations in the NIOSH Alert, Preventing Worker Injuries and Deaths from Moving Refuse Collection Vehicles. 2. Employers should ensure that all required safety, health, and maintenance procedures are followed. 3. Employers and employees should not modify machines unless a qualified engineer and/or machine manufacturer reviews and certifies the safety of the modification. 4. Employers should conduct a job hazard analysis of all work activities with the participation of the workers.
• Content Notes:
  Revised 2005/09/19
• Subjects:
  Accident Prevention Accidents Accidents, Occupational Manufacturing And Industrial Facilities Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Occupational Injuries Safety Safety Management
• Keywords:
  Accident-analysis Accident-potential Accident-prevention Injuries Injury-prevention Machine-operation Occupational-accidents Occupational-hazards OSHA Region 2 Safety-education Safety-equipment Safety-measures Safety-practices Traumatic-injuries Work-analysis Work-operations Work-practices

  More +
• FACE - NIOSH and State:
  FACE ; Machine (All) ; Machine - General ; Prevention through Design (PtD)
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• Subseries:
  State
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHSFACE03NJ100
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  New Jersey ; OSHA Region 2
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  11 pdf pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20026751
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2006-100693
• 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 03NJ100, 2005 Feb ; :1-11
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2005
• Performing Organization:
  New Jersey Department of Health
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  48-49 - Transportation and Warehousing - (NAICS)
• Start Date:
  1991/09/30
• End Date:
  2005/08/31
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:db0e71ec53971ffddc0476230eab524b6dfbf6c64246d1aa4dcb816c4a67230daf68977dc3d515575a4d2a9ac06448747e84dd62b6b4513d228e2df6c6fc5a08
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/169207/cdc_169207_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 416.32 KB ]