OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14481832
IND TRK OPERATOR,WORK RULES,COLLISION,INDUSTRIAL TRUCK,STRUCK BY,TRAIN,RAILROAD,INATTENTION
Event description
Employee struck and killed by train while driving forklift
Investigation abstract
At approximately 8:30 p.m. on May 5, 1988 , a train crew consisting of an engine approaching the intersection from the west, traveling down a ramp with a 6 perc ent grade. The brakeman radioed to the engineer, who applied the emergency brake . Employee #1 did not slow down or apply the brakes as he neared the intersectio n, nor did he notice the approaching train until he heard the train's air brakes engage. He then looked up, and jumped from the forklift in the same direction a s the train was traveling. The inertia of the train carried it 18 ft, striking t he forklift and causing it to overturn onto Employee #1. The train then pushed b oth the forklift and the employee another 18 ft before stopping. Employee #1 was killed. er, a brakeman, and a conductor left the railroad office to switch various rail cars. At 9:00 p.m., the train crew entered the sheet mill of Weirton Steel Corpo ration to pull out several rail cars. At approximately 10:00 p.m., the train ree ntered the sheet mill to bring in other rail cars. At 10:05 p.m., the train, con sisting of 13 cars (11 flat cars, some of which were loaded, and 2 loaded box ca rs) entered the intersection of the south ramp and the #3 track, heading south. The brakeman, who was riding on the front of the lead flat car, saw Employee #1 operating a Yale Forklift Company #3 truck with a coil load on the front. He was
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 51 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 38
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 8
- 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.