OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14200406
MAINTENANCE,DISMANTLING,BACK,NECK,STRUCK BY,TRACTOR,FALLING OBJECT,SPRAIN,UNSTABLE POSITION
Event description
EMPLOYEE'S LIGIMENTS TORN WHEN MOWER FALLS ON HIM
Investigation abstract
At about 8:00 a.m. on June 7, 1985, Employee #1 was working in the shop yard, in weighs approximately 1,000 pounds, was lifted and supported by a wooden stake m easuring 1.5 inches by 1.75 inches and 35.5 inches long. The end of the stake th at was on the pavement was cut at an angle on two sides, making a point. The sta ke had been placed in the center of the mower, toward the tractor. Employee #1 w as working under the lift side of the mower and was sitting with his legs extend ed in front of him. He had taken off one blade and was working on the second bla de when the stake kicked out and the mower dropped to about 18 inches above the pavement. The deck of the mower struck the back of his neck and he was doubled f orward, tearing ligaments and muscles in his back and pinching a nerve in his ne ck. Employee #1 was employed at the Frederick shop since August of 1984 as an Eq front of the blacksmith shop truck storage building, removing the blades of a W uipment Operator II and prior to that had worked with the State Highway Administ ration out of the Westminister shop for approximately 8 years, 5 years as a Labo rer and 3 years as an Equipment Operator I. oods rotary mower Model C80, Serial Number 0035544 to sharpen them. Equipment op erators are expected to sharpen the blades on their mower, with blades sharpened on an average of every 2 days. The mower was hooked to the John Deere tractor t hat was not running and was parked parallel to the building, with tractor toward the office building. The Wood mower is an older mower and is not used often. Th e blades can be taken off from the top of the mower but the bolts had rusted and Employee #1 felt he could get better leverage under the mower. The mower, which
Victim
-
#1 Non-hospitalized injury Age 28 M
- Nature of injury
- 20
- Part of body
- 3
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 26
- Occupation code
- 779
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 6
- Task assigned
- 1
Codes shown verbatim from OSHA's accident-investigation database. A human-readable decoder is coming in a future release once the accident_lookup2 dictionary is loaded.