Abstract: On the day of the accident, Employee #1 was working with a crew of six men in the process of re-roofing three buildings at the Van Nuys High School. Employee #1 was working as a "hot packer" on the job, which meant his job was to carry the buckets of "hot tar" to the "mop carts", and pour the hot tar into the mop carts as needed by the "hot moppers". According to Employee #1, at the time of the accident, he and the crew were working on the last building, and had completed laying the rosin paper and base sheets and nailing them down. Then they started laying the roofing plies, which requires "hot mopping". Employee #1 indicates that he had "hot packed" about 20 buckets of hot tar for the roofers, and they had only about 300 feet left to be laid. A journeyman roofer "yelled for hot" and Employee #1 indicates that he was in the process of moving his "set-up" which included the pipe and the wood cross for holding the pipe, where the "hot tar" was pumped into the buckets. He told the journeyman not to rush him, and they exchanged words or expletives, and the journeyman kicked the bucket over. It fell off the roof. He then went and got his own "hot tar". Employee #1 indicates that a worker on the ground "roped and wheeled" the bucket back up to him on the roof. About this time, the foreman, "yelled for hot" and Employee #1 went and filled the two five-gallon buckets with "hot" and took them over to the foreman's mop cart. While the foreman was still "hot mopping", Employee #1 poured one bucket of "hot" into the mop cart. He picked up the second bucket, which he said was "bent" and his gloves got stuck on the handle. The gloves were covered with tar, and the fingers were sticking together because there was no motor oil at the job site to saturate the gloves to prevent the tar from sticking. According to Employee #1, he went to the "mop cart", picked up the "bent bucket" and started to pour the "hot tar" into the mop cart the way the journeyman roofer had told him to do it. He indicates that because the bucket was bent out of shape, the handle did not "pivot" when he tilted the bucket to pour, causing the "hot tar" to spill into his glove, burning his left hand. Employee #1 immediately tried to get the glove off his hand, by jerking his hand until the glove came off. He fell down on the roof in pain, and his coworkers helped him down the ladder to the ground. Employee #1 was driven to the Healthline Medical Group clinic in Van Nuys, California, by the foreman. He was examined and told to go to the Grossman Burn Center at the Sherman Oaks Hospital. He was driven there by the foreman, where he was examined, treated, and told to return the next day. Employee #1 returned the next day and was hospitalized from August 31, 2000, to September 10, 2000, with two surgeries for third-degree burns and skin grafting to his hand.