OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14252175
VANDER FIRE DEPARTMENT
FAYETTEVILLE, NC·
Event description
Employee killed when struck by falling tree
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 and his coworkers had finished fighting a woods fire. Employee #1 wa s standing in a cleared field taking equipment back to the fire station. It was already dark. A fire lane plow approached the field with a lot of undergrowth in front of the plow. The operator saw a pine tree burning approximately 12 ft fro m its base. Thinking the tree was a snag, the operator decided to push the tree into the fire area. Part of the pine tree fell into the open field where Employe e #1 stood. The tree struck him on the back of his head and knocked him to the g round. He sustained a concussion and was killed.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 26 M
- Nature of injury
- 6
- Part of body
- 13
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 43
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 6
- Hazardous substance
- 8880
- 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.