OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14519441
TRUCK CRANE,ELEC UTILITY WORK,STRUCK BY,LOAD LINE,FALLING OBJECT,UTILITY POLE,CRANE
Event description
STRUCK BY UTILITY POLE FALLING FROM TRUCK
Investigation abstract
THREE EMPLOYEES WERE LOADING OLD UTILITY POLES ONTO A FLAT-BED TRUCK TRAILER AT UDDENLY TWISTED AND ROLLED OVER THE STAKE. THE POLE FELL FROM THE TRUCK BED. IT STRUCK THE EMPLOYEE AT THE REAR OF THE TRUCK, WHO WAS MOVING BACK TOWARD THE TRU CK BED TO REPOSITION THE HOOK ON THE POLE. THE EMPLOYEE DIED OF A SKULL FRACTURE . A UTILITY CONSTRUCTION YARD. THEY WERE USING A TRUCK-MOUNTED CRANE AND A GRAB HO OK TO RAISE THE POLES FROM THE GROUND ONTO THE TRUCK. ONE EMPLOYEE WAS OPERATING THE CRANE; ONE WAS ON THE BED OF THE TRUCK; AND THE THIRD WAS STANDING BEHIND T HE TRUCK. THE EMPLOYEES ENCOUNTERED DIFFICULTY IN SWINGING A 35-FOOT POLE ONTO T HE TRUCK, AND IT WAS FELT THAT THE GRAB HOOK NEEDED TO BE RELOCATED. THE BIG END OF THE POLE REMAINED ON THE GROUND WHILE THE NARROW END WAS LODGED BEHIND A STA KE AT THE REAR OF THE TRUCK BED. APPARENTLY, THERE WAS A BOW IN THE POLE; AND, W HEN THE TENSION IN THE CABLE FROM THE CRANE TO THE POLE WAS RELEASED, THE POLE S
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 56 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 13
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 8
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 4
- 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.