OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #747691
FRACTURE,WORK RULES,OVERLOADED,COLLISION,SKULL,FALL,TIE-OFF,TREE TRIMMING,UNSTABLE POSITION
Event description
Employee killed in fall from tree
Investigation abstract
At approximately 12:30 p.m. on February 6, 1989, Employee #1, who was both a cli the limb sections as they were cut off. This second line was tied onto the same branch that the safety line was tied to. Employee #1 then made three errors. As he removed the branch a section at a time, he moved closer to the base of the li mb; however, he failed to move his safety line each time he moved, leaving the r ope secured to the outer end of the overhead branch. As a result, when he moved in toward the trunk, his safety line became increasingly longer. In addition, he attempted to rope and then cut off the base section of the limb in one piece, w hich may have weighed from 600 lb to 800 lb. Finally, he stood on the section of the limb that he was cutting off, apparently intending to jump clear of the bra nch when it gave way. When he did cut through the limb, his weight, combined wit mber and foreman, and two coworkers who were ground men, were removing a large l h the weight of the limb section, was more than the overhead branch could suppor t. The upper branch, to which both he and the limb section were roped, snapped a t its base and fell, causing Employee #1 to fall, swinging on the safety rope in a downward arc until he collided with the side of the homeowner's house. Employ ee #1 was hospitalized for 10 days before he died of his injuries, which include d a fractured skull, neck, and ribs. The investigation revealed that Employee #1 had received adequate training and supervision and that the procedure that he w as following was contrary to training. The two ground men were the only witnesse s. imb from an oak tree on a steep bank behind a private residence on a clear cool day. The homeowner wanted it removed because it had grown over the rear patio. T he crew had already removed all of the limbs, a section at a time, except for on e section that was about 5 ft long and 18 in. in diameter at the base where it e xtended from the trunk of the tree. Employee #1 had been using two ropes: a safe ty line attached at one end to his climber's harness and at the other end to ano ther limb above the branch that was being removed; and a second line to support
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 26 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 13
- Event type
- 5
- Source
- 8
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 1
- Environmental factor
- 13
- 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.