OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #744904
MOHAWK CONTRACTING CO, INC
JESSUP, MD·
Event description
Employee killed when head crushed by overturned bulldozer
Investigation abstract
Shortly before 9:30 a.m. on March 2, Employee #1, a foreman with 12 years experi e wide open or nearly so. The hinged seat mount had become unlatched, probably o n impact, and the seat was tipped back. Employee #1's head had been crushed by t he roof, and he was dead. The seat belt, which was attached to the seat plate, h ad not been used; the use of seat belts was not required on dozers. There was no evidence that Employee #1 had lost consciousness; apparently he misjudged a rap idly deteriorating situation and did not correctly shift to neutral. Employee #1 had operated this D3 at least 20 times, probably more. The D3 had been bought n ew 10 years ago and had been fitted with a seat belt, a straight blade, and an a pproved rollover-protective canopy on the rear. ence as an equipment operator, told two men that he was going to do some work wi th the Caterpillar D3 bulldozer and disappeared behind a dirt stockpile. He was working on site preparation for a small industrial park that included a storm ce nter with a 5-ft-high berm around three sides. This berm was complete except for a 25-ft-wide spillway that was to be cut in the 12-ft-wide top of the berm. Sub sequently, a county employee reported a tractor on top of a man, so one of the t wo other operators looked behind the stockpile and found the D3 on its rear end. It was resting at the foot of a 27-degree slope in second gear with its throttl
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 61 Male
- Nature of injury
- Other (21)
- Part of body
- MULTIPLE (19)
- Accident type
- STRUCK BY (1)
- Source of injury
- MATERIALS HANDLG EQ. (27)
- Occupation
- Supervisors, material moving equipment operators (843)
- Human factor
- MISJUDGMENT, HAZ. SITUATION (1)
- Environmental factor
- OTHER (18)
- Task assigned
- Task regularly assigned (1)
Labels are OSHA's own, from the code dictionary published with the accident-investigation file. The raw code is shown beside each one so this page can be reconciled against OSHA's bulk data. OSHA notes that nature of injury, part of body, source of injury and accident type in this file are not coded to the Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System, and that the occupation titles are not standardised — so these values are not directly comparable with the OIICS-coded severe injury reports.