105,313Records 71,083Employers 85,290Hospitalizations 27,770Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-10-31
Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #694638

HIGH WIND,TREE FELLING,CONSTRUCTION,TREE,STRUCK BY

Event
HIGH WIND,TREE FELLING,CONSTRUCTION,TREE,STRUCK BY
Linked inspection
No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number
694638
Report ID
355118

Event description

CONSTRUCTION EMPLOYEE KILLED WHEN TREE FELL ON HIM

Investigation abstract

EMPLOYEE #1 AND HIS SON WERE WORKING APPROXIMATELY 50 FEET FROM AN OAK TREE WHIC H WAS BEING PREPARED FOR REMOVAL. A THIRD EMPLOYEE WAS USING A CAT BULLDOZER TO LOOSEN THE TREE BY DIGGING AROUND ITS BASE. AS THE BULLDOZER OPERATOR MOVED HIS MACHINE INTO POSITION TO PUSH OVER THE TREE, HE WARNED THE TWO OTHER EMPLOYEES T O "GET CLEAR." A SUDDEN GUST OF WIND BROKE THE TREE LOOSE FROM THE GROUND. IT FE LL AND STRUCK EMPLOYEE #1, KILLING HIM. EMPLOYEE #1 DID NOT HAVE SUFFICIENT TIME TO COMPLETELY CLEAR THE AREA BEFORE THE TREE FELL.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 47 M

    Nature of injury
    6
    Part of body
    13
    Event type
    1
    Source
    39
    Occupation code
    599
    Human factor
    20
    Environmental factor
    17
    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.