OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #221431547
SAFEWAY INC.
TRACY, CA·
Event description
Tow motor operator's leg is crushed as throttle malfunctions
Investigation abstract
At 11:00 a.m. on December 26, 2021, an employee was working as an operator of get another tow motor after she clocked in. She hopped back on the tow motor, put it in rabbit mode (that is, high speed mode), and drove toward time clock on the open floor. Two other tow motors were in front of her, both approaching and slowing to enter a one-way doorway. The employee was going too fast and unable to slow down, reportedly due to the faulty throttle controller. She swerved left to avoid a collision with the other tow motors and attempted to drive through another door, marked "do not enter," against opposing traffic. When she saw oncoming tow motor headed at her, she turned her tow motor into the center of the two doors, directly into the yellow metal bollards between the doorways. She attempted to jump off her tow motor seconds before striking the metal bollard. industrial trucks for a chain of supermarkets. She was working at a warehouse. Her leg was crushed between her tow motor and the center divider wall or bollard pole. She suffered a laceration in her lower right leg, with an open fracture of her right tibia. She was hospitalized. She was operating an electric riding pallet jack, or tow motor. She was on the morning shift performing her regular duties as an order selector. She took her lunch break at 10:30 a.m. to about 11:00 a.m. Returning from lunch, she entered the warehouse from the parking lot and boarded the same tow motor she had during the morning to drive to the time clock located near the shipping office. When she started the tow motor, she bumped into another parked tow motor. The throttle controller on her tow motor was malfunctioning. A coworker told her to
Victim
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 23 F
- Event type
- 2
- Occupation code
- 856
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.