Abstract: Employee #1 was a flagman for a dockside truck crane that was placing logs in a barge for transport on the Mississippi River to the SWFS Chip Mill in Mobile, AL. The tugboat captain had noticed a broken stanchion, and a replacement shifting stanchion was being driven vertically between the barge coaming and the tiers of horizontal logs already loaded in the barge. Employee #1 was standing on the barge deck between the pier and the barge coaming when he was struck on the head by the shifting stanchion. He was knocked unconscious, fell into the water, and drowned. Employee #1's body was recovered about 4 hours later by divers from the Claiborne County Civil Defense and the Sheriff's Department, and by representatives of the Mississippi Department of Wildlife. Employee #1 had not been wearing a personal flotation device or a hard hat. During the autopsy, the pathologist ruled that he was unconscious before he fell into the water. The cause of death was drowning, in conjunction with nonfatal blunt force trauma to the head.