UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

At approximately 4:20 p.m. on April 23, 2001, Employee #1 died when he fell into a basement excavation on the driver-side rear area of the truck and was impaled on a protruding rebar. The rebar measured approximately 1.5 to 2 feet in length. Employee #1 was delivering ready-mix concrete to a job site. Employee #1 had backed the truck/mixer up to an incline slope (sloping up higher on the left rear passenger side of the vehicle) approximately three feet behind and to the rear driver side of the vehicle to the edge of the basement excavation. Once the wall forms were poured, Employee #1 got out of his truck to assist in topping off the wall forms by racking concrete down the truck chute. Due to the slope of the ground and the chute pinning mechanism on the truck, the chute could not be locked in place in such a manner as to mechanically maintain position of the chute. Another coworker working on another truck on the northwest corner of the construction site went over to the truck to try to help Employee #1. The second employee went back to the truck he was working on. Therefore, the subcontractor had to maintain control of the chute to get the ready-mix concrete to the desired location (common practice in the industry) as Employee #1 racked the concrete down the chute. The subcontractor apparently lost control of the chute. Employee #1 fell into the excavation on the driver-side rear area of the truck and died when he was impaled on the rebar.