105,313Records 71,083Employers 85,290Hospitalizations 27,770Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-10-31
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14289631

UNSECURED,WORK RULES,AIR SHAFT,INATTENTION,WALK PLATFORM,CONSTRUCTION,FALL,STRUCK BY,FALLING OBJECT

Event
UNSECURED,WORK RULES,AIR SHAFT,INATTENTION,WALK PLATFORM,CONSTRUCTION,FALL,STRUCK BY,FALLING OBJECT
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14289631
Report ID
355111

Event description

Employee killed in fall down air shaft

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 was on a temporary work platform, waiting for Employee #2 to cut loo se a piece of 4 in. Schedule 40 steel pipe and to lower it to him for removal fr om an air shaft. Without realizing it, Employee #2 cut loose the only remaining attachment, causing the pipe to fall and strike the work platform. The platform dislodged and fell down the shaft. As Employee #1 was exiting the shaft, he stoo d on a walkboard that had also been partially dislodged. Both he and the board f ell 121 ft down the shaft to a concrete floor. Employee #1 was killed instantly upon impact. Employee #2 was injured but he did not require hospitalization.

Victims (3)

  1. #1 Fatality Age 41 M

    Nature of injury
    12
    Part of body
    19
    Event type
    5
    Source
    43
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    13
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #2 Non-hospitalized injury Age 35 M

    Nature of injury
    3
    Part of body
    19
    Event type
    5
    Source
    43
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    1
    Environmental factor
    13
    Task assigned
    1
  3. #981 Degree 0 Age 0

    Nature of injury
    0
    Part of body
    0
    Event type
    0
    Source
    0
    Occupation code
    0
    Human factor
    0
    Environmental factor
    0
    Task assigned
    0

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.