OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #694315
CHOCK,HEAD,REPAIR,UNSECURED,WORK RULES,MECHANIC,TRUCK,UNMANNED,RUN OVER,SLOPE
Event description
Employee crushed and killed by unsecured rolling truck
Investigation abstract
Employee #1, a diesel truck mechanic working alone, had just changed the brake d ake an adjustment without rechocking the wheels. Employee #1 had been working wi th ordinary mechanic's tools including wrenches and a vise-grip (found attached to the diaphragm). While Employee #1 was underneath the truck, it began to drift down the ramp with the left rear tires apparently rolling onto the creeper on w hich Employee #1 was lying. The truck dragged the creeper approximately 37 ft, a lmost to the bottom of the ramp. When he rolled off the creeper, apparently to e vade the truck's tires, the truck rolled over most of Employee #1's body, includ ing his head, The truck continued to roll down the ramp until it struck a dumpst er and stopped. Employee #1 sustained multiple severe crushing injuries, but was conscious when found by a coworker who thought the truck was ready when he saw iaphragm located on the left side of the rear axle of a 26,500 lb Mack truck wit it roll out of the bay. Employee #1 was pronounced dead on arrival at National O rthopedic Hospital. The failure of Employee #1 to rechock the wheels of the truc k on which he was working caused the accident. h refuse container, which had been backed into service bay #2. The approximately 12 ft wide and approximately 53 ft long truck was parked with its bed partially on the inclined ramp. Three coworkers' statements indicate that when Employee # 1 began the repair the truck's front wheels were chocked with a piece of wood ap proximately 4 ft by 4 in. by 4 in. Apparently, Employee #1 completed the repair and removed the chocks. He then cranked the truck and realized that the brakes w ere failing, so he went back underneath the truck on his mechanic's creeper to m
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 59 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 14
- Source
- 29
- Occupation code
- 507
- Human factor
- 9
- Environmental factor
- 3
- 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.