Abstract: At approximately 7:30 a.m. on Monday, November 22, 1999, four brick masons were in position atop scaffolding erected above and across the front entrance of a chemical engineering building at Mississippi State University. The brick masons were preparing to resume stone setting operations, and they needed fresh mortar mix. Their mortar pan, which had been left on the building's front porch over the weekend, was filled with hardened mortar. Three laborers were positioned on the building's elevated front porch preparing rigging to lift the mortar pan so it could be emptied. Employee #1 (a fourth laborer) was climbing up the west side of mixed-brand metal scaffold frames located just east of the porch. Before the prime contractor's regular crane operator could be located and sent around to the front (north side) of the building, another employee, the masonry subcontractor's substitute crane operator and labor foreman, got into the crane cab and started it up. Without first properly setting the rubber-tired Lorain LRT 275-D Rough Terrain Hydraulic Truck Crane's four outriggers, the employee began extending and raising the telescoping hydraulic boom out over the machine's front (west) end. After 65.6 feet of boom was extended at an angle of about 53.6 degrees, the machine began to tilt over toward the building (south). The end of the boom crashed into the middle of the scaffolding positioned on the building's porch causing Employee #1 to be catapulted up into the air to a height of about 22.5 feet above the porch. Employee #1 fell head first into the boom and scaffold debris, and landed on the porch. The employee died shortly thereafter without regaining consciousness. Employee #2, one of the brick masons, had been standing just west of Employee #1 and suffered a compressed and wrenched back. The employee who had operated the crane was untrained and was not injured.