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 #14505648

INEXPERIENCE,FALL,BUCKET ELEVATOR,AERIAL LIFT

Event
INEXPERIENCE,FALL,BUCKET ELEVATOR,AERIAL LIFT
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14505648
Report ID
728500

Event description

Employee killed testing lift bucket

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 got into the bucket of a lift truck after his lunch break to check t he lift mechanism and controls. The main cylinder had just been overhauled. Empl oyee #1 had experience operating this type of lift truck, but not with checking it after maintenance/overhaul. Not knowing that the controls should be operated in reverse to fill the back side of the cylinder and prevent it from falling, Em ployee #1 lifted up to extend the boom. When the boom was extended more than 90 degrees, the bucket free-fell 30 ft with Employee #1 inside. He died of multiple internal injuries.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 29 M

    Nature of injury
    12
    Part of body
    4
    Event type
    5
    Source
    29
    Occupation code
    999
    Human factor
    18
    Environmental factor
    6
    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.