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 #14342026

LADDER,CONSTRUCTION,DESCENDING,FALL,LOST BALANCE

Event
LADDER,CONSTRUCTION,DESCENDING,FALL,LOST BALANCE
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14342026
Report ID
418800

Event description

Employee dies after fall from ladder

Investigation abstract

At approximately 1:00 p.m. on April 18, 1988, Employee #1 was descending a ladde r to a previously installed sewage lift station, which had never been put into s ervice, to check on work needed to make the transition to new pump flanges. As h e descended the ladder, he was looking up talking to coworkers. Employee #1 appe ared to lose his footing and fell, striking the west wall of the lift station. H e landed on his back at the bottom of the station. Employee #1 died on April 21, 1988 from his injuries. At the approximate spot where Employee #1 lost his foot ing, the ladder had an insert to the rung that may have added to his unsteadines s on the ladder.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 36 M

    Nature of injury
    21
    Part of body
    13
    Event type
    5
    Source
    43
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    14
    Environmental factor
    18
    Hazardous substance
    8880
    Task assigned
    2

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.