UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

At 6:59 p.m. on July 16, 2019, Employee #1, employed by a welding and machine re pair company, was inside a shipping container on a trailer helping to unload a s hipment of electrical cabinets and panels. Employee #1 was behind the electrical panel trying to push, as his coworker, a forklift operator, was attempting to u se a forklift to pull the 2,189 lb electrical panel out, endwise, from the rear of the container. Another forklift was in place to get a better lift angle from the side, once the electrical panel was clear of the portal. As the cabinet was being dragged, it suddenly tipped to the left side of the container (looking in from the rear) and fell. It settled with the top edge of the cabinet leaning ag ainst the left side of the container (looking in from the rear) with approximate ly 3 feet of clearance from the top of the cabinet to the container floor. Emp loyee #1 had moved to the side of the panel just before it tipped over and he wa s struck by the cabinet and trapped due to other boxes in the container blocking his exit forward and being too far from the open doors at the rear of the conta iner to escape. Employee #1 was struck on the head and killed by the falling ele ctrical cabinet. He was wearing a hard hat. He was compressed vertically from st anding to a seated position in the remaining 3 feet clearance. A coroner determi ned that the falling electrical cabinet fractured vertebrae in his neck.