OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #677161

AMERICAN SAFETY ELEVATOR CO

CINCINNATI, OH· 1987-12-11T00:00:00

Event: MAINTENANCE, MECHANIC, CONSTRUCTION, LOCKOUT, CRUSHED, PELVIS, PIT, STRUCK BY, ELEVATOR, FALLING OBJECT
NAICS: 000000
Inspection type: Accident-driven
Activity number: #101116473
Employer profile: AMERICAN SAFETY ELEVATOR CO
Summary number: 677161
Report ID: 522000

Event description

CONSTRUCTION WORKER KILLED WHEN CRUSHED BY FALLING ELEVATOR

Investigation abstract

EMPLOYEE #1, AN ELEVATOR MECHANIC, WAS PERFORMING MAINTENANCE IN AN ELEVATOR PIT . WHILE HE WAS WORKING ON THE HYDRAULIC CYLINDER COUPLINGS, THE PRESSURE SEAL BL EW. SINCE THERE WAS LOSS OF OIL PRESSURE, THE ELEVATOR FREE FELL. EMPLOYEE #1 TR IED TO JUMP OUT OF THE WAY (OUT OF THE PIT) BUT WAS STRUCK IN THE PELVIC AREA, A ND CRUSHED BETWEEN THE FLOOR AND ELEVATOR. EMPLOYEE #1 HAD APPROXIMATELY ONE YEA R'S EXPERIENCE. ACCORDING TO ANOTHER EMPLOYEE WHO WAS WORKING WITH EMPLOYEE #1, EMPLOYEE #1 WAS TRYING TO LOOSEN THE CYLINDER PACKING. IN FACT, HE WAS LOOSENING THE HYDRAULIC CYLINDER COUPLING WHICH WAS UNDER PRESSURE AND HELD THE FULL WEIG HT OF THE ELEVATOR. EMPLOYEE #1 WAS KILLED.

Victim

#1 Fatality Age 27 M

Nature of injury
21

Part of body
1

Event type
2

Source
24

Occupation code
999

Human factor
4

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.