It Really Happened: Is Safety Your Achilles’ Heel?

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  Washington (State). Department of Labor and Industries
• Description:
  A 41-year-old, general freight driver severely injured her lower leg while straining to push a converter dolly. The truck driver was connecting a set of double trailers for a night run of drugstore deliveries. She pulled the rear trailer from the terminal's loading dock, parked it, and then backed the lead trailer up to it. The driver left enough space between the trailers for a short converter dolly that would keep the set within legal length limits. The heavy steel dolly lacked a jack and drawbar-mounted handle, making it hard to grasp and lift or moving. A sudden onset of pain jolted the driver when she pushed and rocked the dolly by its drawbar toward the lead trailer's rear pintle hook. Vomiting and breaking out into a sweat, the injured driver hobbled back to the truck's cab to contact her employer, who had her call 911. After ambulance transport to a local hospital, the driver learned she had torn her right Achilles tendon, a fibrous cord connecting the calf muscles and heel bone. The driver missed nearly a year of work to recover from orthopedic surgery. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Equipment Operators Injuries Injury Prevention Leg Injuries Safety Practices Truck Drivers Trucking
• Publisher:
  Washington State Department of Labor and Industries
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Report
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 10 ; Washington
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20061093
• Citation:
  Olympia, WA: Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, 90-179-2017, 2017 Fall; :1
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2018
• Performing Organization:
  Washington State Department of Labor and Industries
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  It really happened: is safety your Achilles' heel?
• End Date:
  20260630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:84b0321d91f0262b9d8f33e531effd4449199f3cbfae1c9eda3bab71ed847ab91e53895aefca174506078ea0474cef378e2b413f403d1b74a82d0b871fc51ad5
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/224762/cdc_224762_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 228.33 KB ]