OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14391551
GUARDRAIL,WORK RULES,SLIP,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,TRIPPED,FALL,SLIPPERY SURFACE,ELEVATED WORK PLAT,TOWER
Event description
Employee killed in fall from cooling tower platform
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 was working approximately 42 ft above the ground from a redwood plat nd was killed. There were no witnesses. The cooling tower uses only water, no ch emical mixtures. Due to the high humidity, cooling towers in this part of the co untry have a tendency to produce algae, which can result in slippery conditions. The top- and midrails were also split on each end due to age and weather. form atop a cooling tower. The 5 ft by 5 ft 6 1/2 in. landing platform for the s tairs was equipped with a 41 in. high toprail and a midrail, both made of 2 by 4 s, and a 5 3/4 in. toeboard. The toprail and midrail had been bolted from the ou tside into the 4 in. by 4 in. stanchions using a carbon steel bolt with a washer and nut. A piece of 3/4 in. plywood completely covered the deck of the landing platform. All the lumber was redwood. Employee #1 tripped on the edge of the dec king, slipped, or leaned against the handrails, causing the top rail to pull loo se over the bolt and fall to one side. He fell from the cooling tower platform a
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 42 M
- Nature of injury
- 3
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 5
- Source
- 42
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 18
- 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.