OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14508543
VENTURE CONSTRUCTION COMPANY
NORFOLK, VA—
Event description
FORK LIFT LOAD FELL ONTO EMPLOYEE
Investigation abstract
AN EMPLOYEE (THE JOB SUPERINTENDENT) WAS OPERATING A FORKLIFT, ELEVATING APPROXI ELY TWO THOUSAND (2000) POUNDS. MATELY FIFTY SHEETS OF PLYWOOD TO THE ROOF OF A BUILDING UNDER CONSTRUCTION. THE ROOF WAS ABOUT 12 FEET ABOVE GROUND LEVEL. AN EMPLOYEE ON THE ROOF SAW THAT THE PLYWOOD BEING LIFTED WAS OF THE WRONG SIZE. THE FORKLIFT OPERATOR THEN LOWERED THE LOAD TO A POSITION ABOUT FIVE FEET ABOVE THE GROUND. HE THEN DISMOUNTED THE FORKLIFT (POSSIBLY TO PLACE 2 X 4 BOARDS UNDER THE LOAD) AND WALKED TO A POSITIO N BELOW THE LOAD. THE FORKS WERE JAMMED IN THE FORK LIFT'S MAST AND THE FORK SUP PORT CHAINS WERE SLACK. AFTER THE OPERATOR WALKED UNDER THE LOAD THE FORKS RELEA SED. THE LOAD FELL, CRUSHING EMPLOYEE #1. THE LOAD OF PLYWOOD WEIGHED APPROXIMAT
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 23 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 4
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 27
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 11
- 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.