OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #221690571

PALLET DISTRIBUTORS INC.

BYESVILLE, OH— 2024-08-06T00:00:00

Event: Blunt force, Blunt force trauma, Clogged, Conveyor, Drag Chain Conveyor, Falling Object, Head, Jammed, Lack of Work Procedures, Lockout, Lockout/Tagout, Log, Machine Guarding, Machine operator, Mill--Plant, Milling Machine, Pallet, Shoulder, Struck By, Training, Trough, Wood, Wood Board
NAICS: 321920
Inspection type: Federal Agency
Activity number: #347673808
Employer profile: PALLET DISTRIBUTORS INC.
Summary number: 221690571
Report ID: 0522500

Event description

Employee dies from head injuries when struck by log clearing

Investigation abstract

At 8:45 a.m. on August 6, 2024, an employee working as a machine operator for a released and struck the employee on the back of his head and shoulders, killing him. pallet manufacturer was attempting to unjam a log from the infeed trough of a machine. The employee began climbing into the Cleereman Debarker system between the infeed conveyor and log conveyor and was approximately shoulder height within the trough. The employee used a square piece of wood to wedge in the chain of the infeed trough conveyor as it was moving. The piece of wood pushed the log back onto the chain of the conveyor and it continued inside the mill. The employee was still located between the conveyors and kickers when the sensor was cleared, and the kicker was signaled to release the next log. The log was

Victim

#1 Fatality Age 54 M

Event type
1

Occupation code
779

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.