OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14446686
WESTBROOK IRON
KERNERSVILLE, NC—
Event description
Employee killed when pinned by steel column
Investigation abstract
Employee #1, age 19, was working about 80 ft above the ground on one of four leg the rivet in one end above Employee #1's cut and the rivet in the other end bel ow it. Before completing the cut, the upper section of the leg collapsed; the un cut brace acted as a hinge and the leg folded over and pinned Employee #1 agains t the rest of the leg on which he was standing. He suffered multiple internal in juries and bled to death before a rescuer could free him from his safety belt an d lower him to the ground. Employee #1 had no experience or training for the typ e of work he was doing. s that had previously supported a city water tank. The leg was a box column made of two 12 in. channels riveted to a 1/4 in. by 14 in. wide plate on one side, w ith 2 1/4 in. by 3/8 in. by 17 in. long lattice bracing riveted on the other sid e. Employee #1 had used the latticework on the outside as a ladder. The leg was leaning inward toward the tank at approximately 8 degrees. Employee #1 was using a torch to cut through the leg about 18 ft below the top, and intended to let t he section he was cutting fall to the ground. No crane or other rigging was bein g used. An uncut lattice brace was riveted diagonally to opposite channels, with
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 19 M
- Nature of injury
- 6
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 2
- Source
- 8
- Occupation code
- 599
- Human factor
- 18
- Environmental factor
- 6
- Task assigned
- 2
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.