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 #14383186

HEAD,WATER TOWER,WORK RULES,SLIP,CONSTRUCTION,FIXED LADDER,FALL,LOST BALANCE,TIE-OFF

Event
HEAD,WATER TOWER,WORK RULES,SLIP,CONSTRUCTION,FIXED LADDER,FALL,LOST BALANCE,TIE-OFF
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14383186
Report ID
524530

Event description

Employee killed in fall from water tower ladder

Investigation abstract

At 11:45 a.m. on September 11, 1989, Employee #1 had climbed 106 ft to the top o f a water tower's fixed ladder using a safety belt and ladder climbing device. T he employee unhooked the climbing device to crawl through a small tank access ma nhole. He apparently slipped or lost his balance and fell backward down the ladd er to the ground. Employee #1 died of head and body injuries.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 49 M

    Nature of injury
    12
    Part of body
    4
    Event type
    5
    Source
    42
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    6
    Environmental factor
    13
    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.