OSHA Accident Investigation · Summary #221583941

UNDERGROUND CONTRACTORS INC

COLUMBIA CITY, IN— 2023-07-25T00:00:00

Event: Blunt force, Blunt force trauma, Clearing, Construction, Drill, Drill Operator, Head, Installing, Laborer, Misjudgment, Misjudgment of Hazardous Situation, Pipe Wrench, Rotating Parts, Site Preparation, Struck By, Wrench
NAICS: 238910
Inspection type: Federal Agency
Activity number: #346858327
Employer profile: UNDERGROUND CONTRACTORS INC
Summary number: 221583941
Report ID: 0551800
Project type: A
Construction end-use: H

Event description

Employee is killed from head trauma when struck by pipe wren

Investigation abstract

At 2:00 p.m. on July 25, 2023, an employee was working as a construction laborer trauma to his head and was killed. for a site preparation contractor. The employee was instructed to install additional rod sections to the working end of a Vermeer D24�40 Series II horizontal directional drill. While the employee was installing the second of the four additional rod sections, Coworker #1, the foreman, started the drill before the crew had removed their pipe wrenches from the drill rod and cleared the area. In doing so, this caused the drill rod to rotate. This rotation led to one of the pipe wrenches striking the employee in the head. Coworker #2, who was located at the drill end, was uninjured. The employee sustained blunt force

Victim

#1 Fatality Age 60 M

Event type
1

Occupation code
869

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.