OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #977587
EMBANKMENT,ASPHYXIATED,BRAKE,INADEQUATE MAINT,WORK RULES,EQUIPMENT FAILURE,SHARP TURN,OVERHEATED,FIRE TRUCK,OVERTURN
Event description
Fire fighters killed when fire truck overturns
Investigation abstract
Employee #1 and two coworkers were riding in an approximately 20 ton fire truck, cident. Subsequent investigation revealed some maladjustment of the brakes, whic h may also have contributed to the accident. responding to a fire alarm. The truck descended a long steep grade that ended i n a T intersection. It was traveling approximately 40 mph when it reached the bo ttom of the hill, plunged off an embankment, and overturned. The three workers w ere trapped inside the crushed cab and Employee #1 died of asphyxia. There were no tire skid marks at the intersection, but there were "yaw" tire marks near the embankment indicating that the truck skidded sideways as it attempted to make t he sharp turn. It appears the brake system may have failed due to overheating be cause the truck had just made between four and six abrupt stops prior to this ac
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 54 M
- Nature of injury
- 2
- Part of body
- 31
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 29
- Occupation code
- 417
- Human factor
- 9
- Environmental factor
- 4
- 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.