UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

At approximately 8:38 a.m. on April 21, 2013, Employee #1, with Ca Transportation, had just been released from the snow removal crew and was temporarily assigned to a maintenance crew doing tree trimming. As the crew was trimming trees from the closed freeway lane using pole saws, Employee #1 and a coworker suggested to their lead-person that they would like to go below the overpass to get a better angle on a tree. Employee #1 suggested that if the thick vegetation was not too bad, they could go down and look at the tree. According to the lead-person, he left Employee #1 and the coworker to work on a lane closure at the other end of the project but told a second coworker to keep an eye on them. Employee #1 attempted to cut down the tree, which was approximately 18 ft and 4 ins. tall and 14 ins. in diameter. The tree did not fall in the direction Employee #1 had intended. Instead, the tree fell on Employee #1 as he was escaping. Employee #1 was not trained by the employer in the use of a chain saw nor in tree felling operations. In fact, none of the crew or management of the crew were trained in tree felling. There was not a qualified tree person involved in the tree felling operation. Employee #1 was hospitalized with an unspecified fracture.