Abstract: At 1:00 p.m. on January 24, 2001, Employee #1, a truck driver for the Baker Hardwood Company was picking up a load at the Allied Veneer Company in Los Angeles, California. The Baker Hardwood Company is engaged in the warehousing of lumber and is located in National City, California. The accident happened at the loading area by the parking lot of Allied Veneer in Los Angeles. Employee #1 was a truck driver with 30 years of driving experience. The truck is a flatbed truck, about 43 feet long and about 4 feet high. The truck is very new, about six months old. Employee #1 was on site to pick up a load of lumber to be taken to their facility in National City. Allied Veneer's employee loaded the lumber at the center of the trailer. Two stacks of the load had already been put in. At that point, Employee #1 got up on the trailer to set stickers in and to put a tarp or cover on to protect the lumber from getting wet, as it was raining during that time. The fork lift operator had left to get another load of lumber to be loaded on the truck. As Employee #1 was positioning the tarp or cover, his foot slipped and he fell off the truck. Employee #1 was wearing steel toe, skid resistant safety shoes at that time of accident. Nobody was around when the accident happened. Another fork lift operator saw Employee #1 on the ground and called paramedics. Employee #1 was taken to Santa Marta Hospital and was hospitalized for 6 days for a fractured vertebra and cracked ribs.