OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #221501828
PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE LLC - CRAWFORDSVILLE DIST
CRAWFORDSVILLE, IN—
Event description
Employee is killed from skull fracture from unknown source
Investigation abstract
At 7:45 p.m. on September 30, 2022, an employee was using a Turret Truck picking the aisleway. He ended up pushed against the skids staged against a wall. Coworker #1 was operating another PIT and noticed the employee stopped against the wall with boxes books on the ground. She thought the employee's skid had shifted and he had dropped some boxes. She went to help him clean up the boxes but noticed something was wrong. The employee was sitting upright in the seat with his harness and retractable on and still attached to the PIT. His glasses were on and he was chewing with blood coming from his mouth. Coworker #1 also noticed a substance on the employee's shirt that looked like blood. Coworker #1 radioed for help and Coworker #2, a plant first responder, arrived and assessed the situation. He determined it was safe to shut off the PIT and assess the a full skid of book orders for shipping. A a Turret Truck is a type of powered employee. He could not find any visible signs of injury. Outside emergency responders arrived and took over. Coworker #1 and Coworker #2 stated they saw no visible damage to the PIT. The hydraulic lines on the mask were loose due to forks being caught on the boxes and the forks being lowered. The aisleway had no boxes or debris on the floor. There was one spot of blood behind the PIT. The employee had died and during the autopsy was found to have a hinge fracture to his skull of unknown origin. industrial truck (PIT) where the forks can rotate 180 degrees. The operator station on the PIT is on the first mask and forks are on second mask. The employee entered the 8-foot wide aisleway equipped with wire and magnets in the floor that serve to keep the PIT in the center of the aisle. Each includes 6 stacked 5-feet high racks. The PIT speed is limited to 6 miles per hour (mph); 1 mph when the reaching 15-feet. The pick was from the top rack (30-feet). After the pick, the employee lowered the 2 masks back to traveling height and exited
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 29 M
- Event type
- 1
- Occupation code
- 856
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.