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 #14565634

SKULL,LOST BALANCE,UNGUARDED FL OPENING,FALL,UNGUARDED,WORK RULES,WALKING ON PLANK,ELEVATOR SHAFT,FRACTURE,CONSTRUCTION

Event
SKULL,LOST BALANCE,UNGUARDED FL OPENING,FALL,UNGUARDED,WORK RULES,WALKING ON PLANK,ELEVATOR SHAFT,FRACTURE,CONSTRUCTION
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
14565634
Report ID
950411

Event description

Employee killed in fall down elevator shaft

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 was walking from his parking space to his work area, crossing the gr floor, then fell into the southwest corner of the elevator shaft. He suffered a fractured skull and died as a result of massive brain damage. Barricades had be en placed in front of the shaft, but someone had removed them to avoid having to walk to the west end to exit. ound floor of the parking garage, which was under construction. Instead of using the safe access on the west end, he took a shortcut on the north side, passing by an open elevator shaft. A 2 in. by 12 in. plank, which ran from the parking g arage floor across a ditch to the side of a hill, was adjacent to the southwest corner of the open shaft. The west wall of the shaft had rebar extending approxi mately 32 in. above the floor, and the plank ran between the rebar. When Employe e #1 passed through the rebar, he lost his balance and fell into the 15 ft 4 in. deep shaft. He struck the elevator hydraulic shaft that extended 5 ft above the

Victims (3)

  1. #1 Fatality Age 44 M

    Nature of injury
    12
    Part of body
    13
    Event type
    5
    Source
    8
    Occupation code
    575
    Human factor
    4
    Environmental factor
    13
    Task assigned
    1
  2. #981 Degree 0 Age 0

    Nature of injury
    0
    Part of body
    0
    Event type
    0
    Source
    0
    Occupation code
    0
    Human factor
    0
    Environmental factor
    0
    Task assigned
    0
  3. #982 Degree 0 Age 0

    Nature of injury
    0
    Part of body
    0
    Event type
    0
    Source
    0
    Occupation code
    0
    Human factor
    0
    Environmental factor
    0
    Task assigned
    0

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.