OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #878330

CHEST,CLEARANCE,EXCAVATION,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,CONCRETE PIPE,STRUCK BY,COMMUNICATION,INATTENTION

1989-12-19T00:00:00

Event: CHEST,CLEARANCE,EXCAVATION,WORK RULES,CONSTRUCTION,CONCRETE PIPE,STRUCK BY,COMMUNICATION,INATTENTION
Linked inspection: No inspection record linked to this accident's victims.
Summary number: 878330
Report ID: 352430

Event description

Employee killed when struck by 3,375-lb concrete pipe

Investigation abstract

Employee #1 and five coworkers for Todd-Gary, Inc., had laid two 8.33-ft.-long, il was stuck to the pipe in a spot that would affect how the pipe would lie in t he excavation. The crew leader placed the pipe back down on the ground between t he crawler and the stone box at a 45-degree angle. Employee #1 relocated the cha in on the pipe, changing the side on which the frozen dirt would be when the pip e was placed in the excavation. Once the chain was secured, he gave the up signa l to the crew leader. He was between the pipe and the stone box, but the crew le ader thought that he had moved clear of the lift. As the pipe was lifted, it swu ng around (south to north), striking Employee #1 in the chest and driving him in to the 5.58-ft-wide stone box. Paramedics were called and pronounced him dead at the scene. 27-in.-wide storm drain pipes that weighed 3,375 lb.. At approximately 12:00 noo n, the crew leader-equipment operator and Employee #1, a pipesetter, began to ge t the next storm pipe ready to go into the excavation. A stone box was moved fir st, then the crew leader moved his crawler excavator so it was in line with the excavation to the south and the stone box to the north. The concrete pipes were next to the crawler. He swung the crawler bucket over to the next pipe. Employee #1 placed a heavy steel chain around the pipe and hooked the other end to the b ucket. The pipe was lifted, but both employees noticed that a clump of frozen so

Victim

#1 Fatality Age 63 M

Nature of injury
21

Part of body
5

Event type
1

Source
27

Occupation code
865

Human factor
1

Environmental factor
8

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.