OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #221576796
FLORENCE HARDWOODS, LLC
FLORENCE, WI—
Event description
Employee dies when caught in stick conveyor
Investigation abstract
At 6:31 a.m. on June 29, 2023, a 16-year-old employee, Employee #1, was removing amount of sticks that had accumulated in the cart and advanced the cart(s) out from under the conveyor system. Once the cart was filled with sticks, a forklift would remove it from the chain conveyor line. Employee #1 noticed an issue and climbed up onto the operator platform to access the controls. Employee #1 turned off the tilt hoist conveyor lines. The stick conveyor was not turned off. Employee #1 went to address the issue on the stick conveyor and became caught in between the machine frame and the top of a cart. Employee #1 was pinned in the machine. The Planer Building Supervisor was removing a lumber pack from the building, when he noticed Employee #1 pinned in the machine. The Planer Building Supervisor immediately attempted to free Employee #1 and was able to after dried lumber boards from the end of a chain conveyor in the Planer Building. reversing the machine/cart direction. Employee #1 fell onto the floor, where resuscitation was started by the Planer Building Supervisor. Various other employees from the mill responded to the incident. Emergency services arrived and took over resuscitation efforts. Employee #1 suffered crushing injuries to the chest and abdomen and was transported to the hospital. Employee #1 died as a result of crushing injuries to the chest and abdomen. Employee #1 was working alone in the building. The Planer Building Supervisor was operating a forklift to load and unload lumber packs. The conveyor system was incorporated into an automatic Mellott Stick Stacker System that included a stick conveyor. The stick conveyor collected the 72-inch-long kiln sticks that were removed from the lumber stacks by the tilt hoist. The sticks were automatically transported via conveyor to the top of the stick conveyor and then dropped down into metal carts below. Photosensors were installed to detect the
Victim
-
#1 Fatality Age 16 M
- Event type
- 2
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.