Abstract: On January 11, 2000, Employee #1, of All-Pro Painting, was painting exposed nuts, exposed bolts, and burn marks on an overhead monorail system that was part of a new SUV line at an automobile plant. He was working from a caged area at a height of approximately 12 ft 10 in. The area had standard guardrails except for one 2 ft gap in the working surface of the cage. A guardrail had been in place to protect workers from the opening, but employees from the Dearborn Mid-West Conveyor Company had removed it earlier that day to construct the conveyor. No warning line or guardrail had been replaced at the end of the shift. A Dearborn foreman had told an All-Pro foreman about the opening, and the All-Pro foreman had informed its workers to stay 10 ft away from the area. Employee #1 was apparently trying to step over the gap when it fell through it to the concrete floor. There were no witnesses to the fall, but a coworker heard the cage flex and turned in time to see Employee #1's head strike the production line just before landing on the ground. The automobile plant's medical response team responded and called for an ambulance from Maury Regional Hospital. After Employee #1 reached the hospital, he was taken by Life Flight to Vanderbilt Medical Center, where he remained in critical condition until his death on January 16. The medical examiner listed the cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head.