OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14257455
OTTO WILLIAMS LOGGING COMPANY
ENFIELD, NC—
Event description
STRUCK BY FALLING TREE SECTION
Investigation abstract
EMPLOYEE #1 WAS WORKING AS A LOGGER IN A FIELD TIMBER CUTTING SITE. THERE WAS A TREE GROWING APPROXIMATELY 12' TO THE REAR OF THE TREE BEING FELLED. THIS TREE H AD A DEAD SPOT ON IT AT A LEVEL OF APROXIMATELY 25' FROM THE GROUND. THE CANOPY OF THE FELLED TREE BRUSHED THE OTHER TREE ON THE WAY DOWN. THE BOLE SNAPPED AT T HE POINT OF THE DEAD SPOT, SENDING A SECTION OF TREE, APPROXIMATELY 6"IN DIAMETE R, 25' LONG AND WEIGHING AN ESTIMATED 275 POUNDS, DOWN TOWARD THE GROUND. THE EM PLOYEE BACKED INTO THE PATH OF THE FALLING TREE SECTION. THE SECTION STRUCK HIM ON THE HEAD, FATALLY INJURING HIM.
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 39 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 13
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 39
- Occupation code
- 496
- Human factor
- 14
- Environmental factor
- 6
- Hazardous substance
- 8880
- 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.