UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

At 11:00 a.m. on December 26, 2021, an employee was working as an operator of in dustrial trucks for a chain of supermarkets. She was working at a warehouse. She was operating an electric riding pallet jack, or tow motor. She was on the morn ing shift performing her regular duties as an order selector. She took her lunch break at 10:30 a.m. to about 11:00 a.m. Returning from lunch, she entered the w arehouse from the parking lot and boarded the same tow motor she had during the morning to drive to the time clock located near the shipping office. When she st arted the tow motor, she bumped into another parked tow motor. The throttle cont roller on her tow motor was malfunctioning. A coworker told her to get another t ow motor after she clocked in. She hopped back on the tow motor, put it in rabbi t mode (that is, high speed mode), and drove toward time clock on the open floor . Two other tow motors were in front of her, both approaching and slowing to ent er a one-way doorway. The employee was going too fast and unable to slow down, r eportedly due to the faulty throttle controller. She swerved left to avoid a col lision with the other tow motors and attempted to drive through another door, ma rked "do not enter," against opposing traffic. When she saw oncoming tow motor h eaded at her, she turned her tow motor into the center of the two doors, directl y into the yellow metal bollards between the doorways. She attempted to jump off her tow motor seconds before striking the metal bollard. Her leg was crushed be tween her tow motor and the center divider wall or bollard pole. She suffered a laceration in her lower right leg, with an open fracture of her right tibia. She was hospitalized.