OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #659904
TELECOM WORK,BOOM,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,FALL,FALL PROTECTION,NECK,SPRAIN,AERIAL LIFT
Event description
FALL - AERIAL LIFT BOOM FAILURE
Investigation abstract
A telephone line worker was installing a telephone cable from the bucket of an a He was hospitalized for his injures. It is believed that sufficient inspections would have uncovered defects in the boom. erial lift. The ServiLift aerial lift (Model No. S-21 MT, Serial No. 7&2), which had a load rating of 136 kilograms, was manufactured in 1970. It had an articul ating boom, and the fiberglass-reinforced plastic upper boom was refurbished in 1980. When employee had finished at one work location, the truck was driven back with no tension or additional stress on the boom beyond the weight of the emplo yee. The upper boom cracked at the rotating hinge area, where the stress is the greatest. The line worker grabbed onto some tree branches and apparently fell in to his safety belt. He injured the back of his neck and suffered severe sprains.
Victim
-
#1 Hospitalized Age 35 M
- Nature of injury
- 3
- Part of body
- 20
- Event type
- 5
- Source
- 24
- Occupation code
- 527
- Human factor
- 15
- Environmental factor
- 18
- 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.