UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

An employee was working for a local general freight trucking firm. He drove heav y trucks. He was tarping a load of lumber on a flatbed trailer. There are varyin g accounts of what happened next. The UPA stated that on September 17, 2021, he fell while tarping the truck. He suffered a serious injury, and he died a week l ater, on September 24, 2021, of cardiac arrest. The investigation report stated that he fell from the truck to a lower level, the ground. It makes no mention of hospitalization, suggesting that the employee was killed outright. It gives the time and date of the incident as 3:15 p.m. on September 24, 2021. The narrative stated that the employee fell or tripped from the trailer deck to the ground be low, or that he passed out while on the ground and fell over. Either way, the na rrative states that he suffered a fractured skull and ribs and a punctured lung when he struck the gravel on the ground. The investigation was in agreement with the nature of the injuries. The federal violation worksheet stated that on Sept ember 17th, the employee had tarped a load at the tarping station. It appeared t hat he had finished, except for tying the bottom corners down. The employee was found, conscious, on the ground near the passenger side of his tractor trailer. He was hospitalized with broken ribs and a fractured skull. He appeared to be ma king a recovery, when he passed away at the hospital on September 24th. An autop sy was not performed. From information provided by the hospital, the coroner det ermined the cause of death was acute hypoxic respiratory failure due to blunt fo rce injury, with chronic COPD as a contributing factor. The manner of death was an on-the-job injury.