Abstract: At approximately 11:30 a.m. on September 18, 2011, Employee #1 and his foreman were working at an operation that was located at the coal handling area of an electric power generation plant. They were standing on a platform, on top of a machine known as a coal plow. This machine rode along the top of a coal handling conveyor inside of a tunnel. The tunnel was designed with a concrete shelf on each side that ran the length of the tunnel to within fifteen feet of the back wall of the tunnel. As coal came down vibrating chutes from the coal pile directly above ground, the coal fell onto these shelves. The coal plow automatically traveled up and down the conveyor and had horizontal rotating blades that pulled the coal off the shelves and onto the conveyor belt. The coal plow's direction and distance of travel was controlled by limit switches. The back limit switch on this coal plow was adjusted so that the back end of the plow went past the end of the tunnel's shelves on both sides. To gain access to the coal plow's platform, employees climbed up a fixed ladder on the side near the back of the coal plow. At the top of the ladder was a twelve inch section of the guardrail that protruded into the platform. The top of the guardrail was five inches below the tunnel shelf as the coal plow traveled up and down the conveyor. The coal plow had traveled to the back limit switch, which now exposed the guardrail at the top of the ladder. Employee #1 and his foreman were on top of the moving plow, checking for plugging in one of the feed chutes. Employee #1 was standing on the platform at the top of the access ladder, with the previously mentioned twelve-inch section of guard rail on one side of him and the end of the concrete shelf on the other side. When the plow automatically reversed direction, Employee #1 was pinned between the end of the concrete shelf and the guardrail. The foreman saw this and immediately hit the emergency stop button. The coal plow was not designed with back-up controls. Therefore, the foreman had to jump off the back of the coal plow and run to the front end of the tunnel to access the control panel to back the plow up and free Employee #1. Onsite emergency personnel were contacted, as well as outside medical services (Life Flight). Employee #1 was transported by stretcher board to the site's Life Flight helicopter pad. Employee #1 died before the helicopter arrived and could not be revived.