Safety Incidents OSHA Severe Injury Reports · 2015–2025
105,313Records 71,083Employers 85,290Hospitalizations 27,770Amputations 2015-01-01 2025-10-31

OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #221571656

66179 - JAMES LEWIS - SONS INC

Event
Blunt force, Blunt force trauma, Clearance, Cutting, Falling Object, Head, Lack of Work Procedures, Landscaper, Landscaping, Struck By, Tree, Tree Felling, Wood
NAICS
561730
Inspection type
Federal Agency
Activity number
#346766298
Employer profile
66179 - JAMES LEWIS - SONS INC
Summary number
221571656
Report ID
0452110

Event description

Employee is struck in head by falling wood, later dies

Investigation abstract

On May 19, 2023, an employee was working on a tree trimming service crew with three coworkers. The crew was removing a 70-foot elm tree at a residential home. A coworker operating a bucket (foreman) was cutting limbs and chunks of wood and dropping them into a "drop zone" next to the house and bucket truck. The coworker cut a 3-foot long by 1-foot diameter chunk of wood from the tree and boomed over the drop zone dropping the wood approximately 30 feet. The employee had walked into the drop zone and was struck in the head by the wood. The employee was airlifted to a major medical center, where he died on June 04, 2023.

Victim

  1. #1 Fatality Age 61 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.