OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14291363
PINNED,WORK RULES,LODGED TREE,STRUCK BY,LOGGING
Event description
Employee killed when struck by lodged tree
Investigation abstract
Employee #1, a saw operator, was working with a truck driver, a loader operator, and a skidder operator, to cut 100 acres of mixed hardwood for saw logs and pul pwood. Employee #1 lodged a relatively small (60 to 90 ft) cottonwood in a large r cottonwood. The skidder operator, who was working in the vicinity, noticed the problem and stopped his skidder. He told the saw operator to take a break and t hat he would return shortly to pull down the lodged tree. When the skidder opera tor returned, the larger tree had been cut and both trees had fallen. Employee # 1 was pinned under the smaller cottonwood and killed. It appears that he became impatient and violated the company's policy against cutting down lodged trees.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 57 M
- Nature of injury
- 6
- 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.