OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #221569502

WA317972230 - EASTSIDE TREE WORKS LLC

ISSAQUAH, WA— 2023-01-20T00:00:00

Event: Back Cut, Blunt force, Blunt force trauma, Chain Saw, Cut, Face, Falling Object, Head, Struck By, Tree Care, Tree Felling, Tree Limb
NAICS: 561730
Inspection type: Accident-driven
Activity number: #346469570
Employer profile: WA317972230 - EASTSIDE TREE WORKS LLC
Summary number: 221569502
Report ID: 1055320

Event description

Employee is killed when struck by tree branch

Investigation abstract

At 10:00 a.m. on January 20, 2023, an employee was removing trees as part of a storm response and was assigned to a residential property to clear trees and branches. The employee and his team were cutting down a tree that was holding up two fallen trees and branches. The employee climbed up the tree and performed a few cuts to reduce the tip weight of the tree then climbed back down. The employee then began performing the face cut, followed by the back cut. While performing the back cut, a branch became dislodged from above, fell, and struck the employee in the head and face. The employee died due to his injuries.

Victim

#1 Fatality Age 51 M

Event type
1

Occupation code
999

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.