Fatality Narrative: Hop Yard Laborer Struck by Hop Pole

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  Washington (State). Department of Labor and Industries
• Description:
  On September 21, 2014, a 33-year-old hop-farm laborer was fatally injured when he was struck on the head by a falling hop pole. He was a seasonal hop-farm laborer who had been working at his employer's farm for three weeks during the hop harvest. On the day of the incident he was working with a field crew and serving as a side tender. He was preparing the trucks as they approached and departed the harvesting operation in the field. The hop vines were trellised on vertical ropes suspended from horizontal wires that were secured to the tops of 18-foot poles. The harvesting procedure involved a bottom-cutter, (a tractor with a cutting implement) which cut the bottom of the vines, followed by a top-cutter harvester machine that cut the top of the vines. As the vines were cut, they fell into a truck that was in front of the top-cutter. The victim's job, among other duties, was to vertically insert 3-foot pieces of PVC pipe into pegs mounted on either side of the front of the truck, so that as the truck moved forward the vines were guided inward into the truck bed before being cut. When the truck was full, he would remove the pieces of pipe and place them on the next truck. He was walking next to the top-cutter. The top-cutter operator had warned the victim to not walk beside the machine as it was moving. The employer required field crew members working the harvest to wear hard hats. The victim was not wearing a hard hat. The top-cutter operator noticed that a pole was falling and yelled "pole!" The victim was hit on the head by the falling pole. It is not known whether the top-cutter struck the pole. The victim was taken to a hospital where he died four days later. Description provided by NIOSH
• Subjects:
  • Accident Prevention
  • Accidents
  • Accidents, Occupational
  • Agriculture
  • Education
  • Farmers
  • Occupational Health
  • Personal Protective Equipment
  • Safety
  • Staff Development
  More +
• Keywords:
  • Workers
  • Work environment
  • Seasonal workers
  • Farm workers
  • Agriculture
  • Agricultural workers
  • Agricultural
  • Personal protective equipment
  • PPE
  • Personal protection
  More +
• Series:
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation Reports (FACE)
• 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:20051473
• Citation:
  Olympia, WA: Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, 71-138-2015, 2015 Jun; :1
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2015
• Performing Organization:
  Washington State Department of Labor and Industries
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Fatality narrative: hop yard laborer struck by hop pole
• End Date:
  20260630
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/228736/cdc_228736_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 427.83 KB]
• Collection(s):
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) Program ; National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:0f15f1f59cc9ed91efc0ab33554cb3e51e15743f5cfa902f9634762828802fb3d741024b9e964783d9dca3e4d8326bd66a8e0364a637c0d6b6a3f5327f42650d