Abstract: At 2:30 p.m. on September 21, 1996, Employee #1 was directed by the lead person to clean the upper two-thirds of an air curtain while the lead person operated and cleaned a forklift and a coworker cleaned the lower third of the air curtain. Employee #1 was on a wooden pallet elevated between 8 and 10 ft by the lead person. The forklift was oriented north-south, and was operating parallel to the air curtain on the east side. When Employee #1 asked the forklift operator to move forward, the operator, who was talking with a coworker, inadvertently hit the side-shift control instead of the forward control, which moved the pallet and forks to the left. Employee #1's left ankle was crushed and fractured between the side-shift cylinder and the inside edge of the lift's right fork. Employee #1 was lowered to the ground and transported to Valley Medical Center, Fresno, CA, where he was admitted for treatment and surgery. The wooden pallet/work platform was not equipped with a toe board or guardrails, and it was not secured to the forklift.