OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14477616
CHEST,FRACTURE,TREE FELLING,TREE,FALLING OBJECT
Event description
STRUCK BY FALLING TREE
Investigation abstract
EMPLOYEE #1 MADE AN UNDERCUT AND A FELLING CUT ON A 15" DIAMETER SPRUCE TREE. TH E TREE DIDN'T FALL & "SET BACK" ON THE STUMP. THE EMPLOYEE DID NOT USE A WEDGE O R FELLING BAR TO CAUSE THE TREE TO FALL, NOR DID HE USE HIS SKIDDER TO PUSH IT D OWN. HE WALKED AWAY FROM THE TREE IN THE INTENDED DIRECTION OF FALL AND BEGAN LI MBING A PREVIOUSLY FELLED MAPLE TREE. THE SPRUCE TREE FELL AND STRUCK THE EMPLOY EE, CAUSING MULTIPLE FRACTURES TO THE CHEST AREA, KILLING HIM. THERE WAS LITTLE IF ANY SUPERVISION AT THE WORK SITE. THERE WERE NO WRITTEN WORK RULES FORBIDDING WORK WITHIN TWO TREE LENGTHS OF A LODGED TREE.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 62 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 5
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 39
- Occupation code
- 496
- Human factor
- 18
- 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.