Abstract: Employee #1, a workover rig operator, was fishing stuck tubing from an approximately 12,000 ft deep well. He was pulling on a string of tubing when the string parted at about 5,000 ft and traveled between 10 and 20 ft upward out of the hole, pulling the traveling block with it. The cables that supported the traveling block, the tubing line that feeds from the drum, and the dead line that was fastened to the rig floor, were all suddenly slackened by this movement. As the dead line whipped around, Employee #1 tried to escape from the rig floor. He was struck in the head by the dead line and a weight-sensing diaphragm mounted on it. Employee #1 was declared dead on the scene from massive blunt force trauma to the head. It is not clear why the tubing string parted, but this type of failure has been known to occur in fishing operations.