Inspection Detail

Inspection: 116566761 - Eagle Excavating, Inc.

Inspection Information - Office: Omaha Area Office

Investigation Summary

Employee #1 and coworkers from two trucking companies were hauling dirt at a road construction site to build the base for a highway overpass. The trucking companies were working with an excavating company that was moving the earth in preparation for road surfacing. Employee #1 was driving a Freightliner tractor and pulling a Schaller Roadmaster belly-dump trailer when the drive shaft of the tractor twisted, probably due to the very muddy conditions. Employee #1 exited his cab to investigate and climbed under the tractor to remove the retaining ring from the drive. At the same time, a 1978 Caterpillar D8K bulldozer, operated by an employee of the excavating company, came behind the trailer to push it out of the mud. The site superintendent, who was driving along the adjacent roadway, had seen Employee #1 climb under the tractor and saw the bulldozer headed for the truck. The superintendent stopped his vehicle, jumped out, and started running toward the truck and bulldozer in an attempt to prevent an accident. When the bulldozer pushed the trailer, Employee #1 was run over by the left rear dual wheels of the tractor, then by those of the trailer. He suffered massive chest and abdominal injuries, and was killed. The dozer operator finally saw the superintendent, who was signaling to him that something was wrong, and stopped his vehicle with its left track on top of Employee #1. Apparently, the bulldozer driver was not able to see Employee #1 at the time of the accident, and only stopped when he saw the site superintendent. It was normal practice at this job site and for this excavating company to push stuck tractor/trailers out of the mud with their earthmoving equipment (typically bulldozers), and it had been done many tomes without incident. The excavating company had CB radios, as did most of the truckers on site. They used these for communicating where to dump dirt and where the tractor/trailers needed to go. The truck driver had not signaled that he was getting out of his truck, and the bulldozer had not signaled to the truck driver that he was going to push him out of the mud.

Keywords: EARTHMOVING EQUIP, MIRED, TRACTOR TRAILER, WORK RULES, TRUCK DRIVER, CRUSHED, BULLDOZER, RUN OVER, COMMUNICATION, MECH MALFUNCTION