OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #975581
FRACTURE,HEAD,BOOM,WORK RULES,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,HOSE,HYDRAULIC LINE,RUPTURE,STRUCK BY,FALLING OBJECT
Event description
Employee killed when struck by falling 1 1/2 ton magnet
Investigation abstract
At approximately 8:45 a.m. on June 5, 1989, at Madden Auto Sales and Salvage in Blocher, IN, the hydraulic hose (original equipment) on a 17-year-old P&H 312 tr ack backhoe ruptured. All hydraulic pressure to the boom failed instantly. The e ntire boom, and the 1 1/2 ton magnet it was carrying, free-fell and struck Emplo yee #1, age 52. He died instantly of multiple head fractures and wounds, and mul tiple fractures of other body parts. The track backhoe did not have a hydraulic cylinder holding its valves intact, which is current standard safety equipment o n all such units in the industry. Employee #1 should not have been in the area.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 52 M
- Nature of injury
- 12
- Part of body
- 13
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 27
- Occupation code
- 864
- Human factor
- 4
- Environmental factor
- 6
- 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.