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 #14527527

CHEST,SUFFOCATED,WORK RULES,STRUCK BY,FALLING OBJECT,UNSTABLE POSITION

Event
CHEST,SUFFOCATED,WORK RULES,STRUCK BY,FALLING OBJECT,UNSTABLE POSITION
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14527527
Report ID
419400

Event description

BUNDLE OF STEEL GRATING FELL AGAINST WORKER; HE SUFFOCATED

Investigation abstract

EMPLOYEE #1 WAS STACKING STEEL GRATING IN BUNDLES OF 10 PANELS EACH. THE BUNDLES WERE STACKED SO THAT A SPACE OF ABOUT 4 FEET BY FOUR FEET BY 20 INCHES SEPARATE D THEM. THE GRATING WAS NOT CUT TO THE PROPER LENGTH OR PROPERLY SPACED TO STABI LIZE EACH 6 BUNDLE STACK. EMPLOYEE #1 VIOLATED COMPANY RULES BY GETTING BETWEEN THE STACKS WHILE LOWERING BUNDLES. ONE OF THE STACKS FELL SIDEWAYS, PINNING HIM TO THE STACK BEHIND HIM. THE HEAVY WEIGHT CONSTRICTED HIS CHEST, CAUSING HIM TO SUFFOCATE.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 29 M

    Nature of injury
    21
    Part of body
    5
    Event type
    2
    Source
    28
    Occupation code
    999
    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.