OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #14556013
T S R CONTRACTING INC
WINDOW ROCK, AZ—
Event description
Employee killed when torso is backed over by scraper
Investigation abstract
At about 5:55 p.m. on August 3, 1984, Employee #1 was working with a scraper ope The scraper operator had gotten off his equipment and was watching the test whe n Employee #1 walked up and discussed the compaction methods with the soils tech nician. They told the operator to finish rolling the berm to its outside edge; E mployee #1 marked the edge for the operator with a flagged rebar. The operator g ot back on his scraper. Employee #1 and the soils technician had walked toward t he soils technician's pickup, which was parked off the berm, but near its edge a nd toward the rear of the scraper. The scraper operator drove forward completing the pass, then backed to the right and straightened out to start a new pass on the next area over. Employee #1 had gotten on his hands and knees with his back to the scraper--apparently to check compaction--when the right rear tire of the rator and soils technician attempting to solve a soil compaction problem on an e scraper struck and rolled over his torso and legs. The operator could not see hi m, since he was directly behind the scraper. Employee #1 died of multiple injuri es. The operator had not checked the back-up alarm the day of the accident and n either he nor the soils technician could say they heard the alarm working that d ay. arth berm being built up against the north outside wall of a new building. The b ase of the berm was about 135 feet by 35 feet. A loaded John Deere, model 762, e xcavating scraper was being used to wheel roll the fill by making backward and f orward passes along the building wall and working out to the edge of the berm. B ecause of vehicles parked in the area, the scraper was backed rather than turned around. About half the berm had been rolled when the scraper was stopped about halfway through a forward pass while the soils technician ran a compaction test.
Victims (6)
-
#1 Fatality Age 57 M
- Nature of injury
- 21
- Part of body
- 19
- Event type
- 1
- Source
- 27
- Occupation code
- 999
- Human factor
- 9
- Environmental factor
- 8
- Task assigned
- 1
-
#981 Degree 0 Age 0
- Nature of injury
- 0
- Part of body
- 0
- Event type
- 0
- Source
- 0
- Occupation code
- 0
- Human factor
- 0
- Environmental factor
- 0
- Task assigned
- 0
-
#982 Degree 0 Age 0
- Nature of injury
- 0
- Part of body
- 0
- Event type
- 0
- Source
- 0
- Occupation code
- 0
- Human factor
- 0
- Environmental factor
- 0
- Task assigned
- 0
-
#983 Degree 0 Age 0
- Nature of injury
- 0
- Part of body
- 0
- Event type
- 0
- Source
- 0
- Occupation code
- 0
- Human factor
- 0
- Environmental factor
- 0
- Task assigned
- 0
-
#984 Degree 0 Age 0
- Nature of injury
- 0
- Part of body
- 0
- Event type
- 0
- Source
- 0
- Occupation code
- 0
- Human factor
- 0
- Environmental factor
- 0
- Task assigned
- 0
-
#985 Degree 0 Age 0
- Nature of injury
- 0
- Part of body
- 0
- Event type
- 0
- Source
- 0
- Occupation code
- 0
- Human factor
- 0
- Environmental factor
- 0
- Task assigned
- 0
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