Worker dies after being crushed between manlift and horizontal I-beam in Minnesota.
NIOSH 2001 Feb; :1-4
A 43-year-old male worker (victim) died of injuries he sustained when he was pinned between the control panel of a manlift and a steel I-beam. The incident occurred in an area of a waste food processing plant known as the "finished feed bay". The main portion of the floor of the feed bay was a platform scale for weighing trucks. Located in the feed bay was an overhead conveyor used to load finished product into trucks. Also located in the feed bay was an I-beam that was fastened horizontally to the side walls. The victim and a co-worker were employees of a cleaning and painting company. Their employer had rented a four-wheel drive manlift for cleaning and painting the facility. The operator's platform of the manlift was attached to the end of a telescopic boom and was surrounded by safety railings. An operator's control panel was fastened to the top of the safety railing. While facing the control panel, the operator was able to drive the manlift forward and backward and change the position of the work platform. The victim drove the manlift across the platform scale but he was not facing the direction it was moving. The platform was raised to a height where the top of the safety railing was a few inches below the bottom of the I-beam. As he drove the manlift, the safety railings of the manlift passed beneath the I-beam and the victim was pinned between the beam and the control panel. He was found by his co-worker who placed a call to emergency personnel. Rescue personnel arrived at the scene shortly after being notified. They removed the victim and pronounced him dead at the scene. MN FACE investigators concluded that, in order to reduce the likelihood of similar occurrences, the following guidelines should be followed: 1. employers should ensure that operators of mobile equipment face the direction of travel or have a coworker assist them while the equipment is moving; 2. employers should conduct scheduled and unscheduled workplace safety inspections; and 3. employers should design, develop, and implement a comprehensive safety program.
Region-5; Accident-analysis; Accident-prevention; Accidents; Injuries; Injury-prevention; Traumatic-injuries; Work-operations; Work-analysis; Work-areas; Work-performance; Work-practices; Safety-education; Safety-equipment; Safety-measures; Safety-monitoring; Protective-measures; Safety-programs; Equipment-operators; Scaffolds; Painters; Construction-workers; Construction-equipment
Field Studies; Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
Minnesota Department of Health