OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14206288
HEAD,TREE,LOGGER,STRUCK BY,LOGGING
Event description
EMPLOYEE KILLED WHEN STRUCK BY TREE CHUNK
Investigation abstract
At 11:15 A.M. on October 13,1985, Employee #1 and a coworker were in the process n a chunk from the Alder struck Employee #1 on the head. The coworker then posit ioned Employee #1 and checked for vital signs and found none. The coworker then went to the landing to have a helicopter and doctor sent. The helicopter arrived at approximately 12:15 P.M. Employee #1 was transported to the hospital. At the hospital, Employee #1 was pronounced dead. of felling a large fir tree. The employees were a forestry and logging worker a nd a supervisor. Employee #1 was preparing the tree, while the coworker was watc hing Employee #1's procedures for cutting and preparation. The coworker then wal ked up the hill behind Employee #1. Employee #1 finished making his backcut. As the tree started to open up and fall, the coworker saw an Alder tree being pulle d into a Hemlock tree. The coworker screamed and hollered to warn Employee #1. E mployee #1 obviously never heard his coworker because Employee #1 continued to p ull his saw from the backcut and then turned to his right and took two steps whe
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 51 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 13
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 43
- Occupation code
- 494
- 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.