Fatality Narrative: Construction Engineer Killed When Struck by Car in Highway Work Zone

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  Washington (State). Department of Labor and Industries
• Description:
  On June 22, 2007, a construction engineer was killed when he was struck by a motor vehicle that entered a highway work zone. The 30-year-old victim had worked several years for his employer, a highway construction company. The current project involving major reconstruction and lane additions on an interstate highway had been active for about a year. On this evening, three of five traffic lanes were closed for the night so that a contractor could perform saw cutting work to remove a portion of asphalt from the highway in preparation for resurfacing. The three closed highway lanes were separated from the two open traffic lanes with a line of orange traffic control barrels. There were signs indicating "Construction Ahead" and large directional arrow boards lit up indicating that traffic should move to the right. The work area was brightly lit with portable lights, as well as street lamps. As an added safety device there was a truck mounted attenuator (TMA) parked in the work zone "upstream" from the crew doing the asphalt cutting. At about 12:30 AM the victim and a coworker, wearing orange vests, went behind the TMA (in the direction of the oncoming traffic) to search for survey marks on the pavement and spray paint them so that they would not be lost during the pavement removal. An SUV went through the line of barrels and entered the work zone, struck the two workers, and then struck the TMA. As a result of the force of being struck the two workers were thrown into the traffic lane. Another worker pulled one of the victims, who received minor injuries, to safety. The other victim was run over and killed by a motor vehicle in the traffic lane. The SUV driver was found to be intoxicated and was convicted of vehicular homicide. Description provided by NIOSH
• Subjects:
  • Accident Prevention
  • Accidents
  • Accidents, Occupational
  • Automobiles
  • Construction Industry
  • Education
  • Mortality
  • Occupational Health
  • Personal Protective Equipment
  • Safety
  More +
• Keywords:
  • Workers
  • Work environment
  • Construction equipment
  • Construction
  • Construction workers
  • Vehicle safety
  • Work zone
  • Communication systems
  • Communications equipment
  • 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:20051697
• Citation:
  Olympia, WA: Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, 71-73-2008, 2008 Jul; :1
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2008
• NORA Priority Area:
  Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing
• Performing Organization:
  Washington State Department of Labor and Industries
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Fatality narrative: construction engineer killed when struck by car in highway work zone
• End Date:
  20260630
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/228800/cdc_228800_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 45.38 KB]
• Collection(s):
  Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) Program ; National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:8a3596d96cfbcffef090337a6853550ae4cfafb6fd0675debb30b4792e7067a10fde40d2be332c9f21a8b760437c5745d58c999df4a84b2f792911a88ab5605c