OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14340368
UNION CAMP CORPORATION
WAYCROSS, GA·
Event description
Tractor operator killed when impaled by tree
Investigation abstract
At approximately 12:30 p.m. on July 22, 1987, Employee #1 was ploughing a fire b reak in preparation for burning a tract of land that would be re-planted with pi ne trees. He was using a Caterpillar tractor equipped with a V-shear blade. Empl oyee #1 apparently traveled too far to the right and contacted a cypress tree th at was lying parallel to the path of the tractor. The tree went past the blade a nd over the right track, breaking through the protective mesh at the lower front part of the cab. The tree bent the operator's padded metal seat and impaled Emp loyee #1 below the rib cage, pinning him against the rear of the cab. He apparen tly died immediately.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 35 M
- Nature of injury
- 18
- Part of body
- 1
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 39
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 2
- Hazardous substance
- 8330
- 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.