Exposure to environmental heat outdoor · Heat stroke, syncope
At a glance
Federal OSHA recorded a severe workplace injury
at Melhorn Sales Service & Trucking Company, 366 Warwick Road, MIDDLETOWN, DELAWARE 19709
on — Heat stroke, syncope, affecting the BODY SYSTEMS .
Final narrative
An employee had been loading trucks with chickens. The employee was hospitalized for heat stroke/heat exhaustion.
On October 7, 2025, employee was installing mulch with a landscape crew. At around 2:15 PM, the employee took a break and started to feel cramping/pain. The employee was taken to the hospital with rhabdomyolysis due to heat exhaustion.
A temporary employee was on top of a cane wagon, throwing cane down to the ground (i.e., planting). He reached the end of the field row and started to feel ill. He experienced cramping and headaches due to heat exhaustion.
An employee had dumped a load of hot mix (tar) and was cleaning the interior walls of a belly dump trailer onsite. The employee was scraping the walls of the trailer when the doors articulated, breaking the securement pin and pinching the employee's legs. The employee sustained crushing injuries and severed tendons and arteries to both legs and was hospitalized.
An employee was transferring sulfuric acid into a customer's tank. They connected the transfer hose to the receiving tank and attached the compressed air line used to pressurize the trailer. An air valve opened during unloading and a small amount of sulfuric acid got under the employee's face shield and onto their face. The employee suffered third-degree chemical burns to their face, right ear, and chest.
An employee was working to adjust a misfed pallet board that was entering the pallet board collection point. His left middle fingertip became caught between the board he was adjusting and other boards already stacked in the collection area. This resulted in amputation of the fingertip.
On July 22, 2025, at approximately 4:30 a.m. after the previous day's shift, an employee was hospitalized with a kidney injury caused by heat-related illness. The employee had worked several consecutive days delivering packages in high outdoor heat and humidity without cooling gear.
On July 18, 2025, an employee was tarping a load on a flatbed trailer in the yard. He fell approximately 13 feet off the loaded trailer and landed face-down on a gravel lot. The employee sustained facial cuts, abrasions, scrapes, fractures to their face, as well as several fractured ribs. He was hospitalized.
A flagger was directing traffic flow in a highway work zone. They were standing approximately 1.5 feet behind the shoulder's demarcating line, next to and slightly behind a traffic drum. As they were directing traffic into and out of the driveway of a parking lot, a car attempted to get around a truck and struck the traffic drum, which subsequently struck the employee, who was thrown 15 feet and landed on top of concrete aggregate. The employee suffered pelvic and rib fractures, T10 and L3 vertebra fractures, and internal bleeding.
An employee was troubleshooting a power washer in the field. Because there might have been water in its fuel, he brought it back to the shop and drained about a gallon of fuel from the tank into a plastic container. Some of the fuel spilled onto the floor and ignited. The employee was stomping out the fire when he lost his balance and tripped into a stool, which caused the plastic container to spill more fuel onto the fire. The employee's pants and shirt caught on fire, and he fell, abrading his knee while trying to get through the flames. As well as the knee abrasion, he suffered burns to the left leg and left lower quadrant of the torso. He was hospitalized.
An employee was backing up a tram (towing powered industrial equipment) to connect it to a trash bin. The employee's left forearm/wrist was caught and crushed between the tram and the bin. The employee was hospitalized.
An employee went to lift a carton and tripped on a different carton that was on the floor. She fell on the floor in the backroom and sustained a fractured right hip, and abrasions to her arm and knee. The employee was hospitalized and required surgery.