Inspection Detail

Inspection: 119807915 - Energy Salvage, Inc.

Inspection Information - Office: Sacramento District Office

Investigation Summary

On December 23, 1992, Employee #1, a coworker, and his brother, of Energy Salvage, Inc., were cleaning around a rotating trommel screen (20 ft long by 6 ft diameter drum) at a landfill. Because the screens in the drum had become clogged with wet material, Employee #1 and his brother, who had been operating the machine, stopped the drum. They did not, however, turn off the engine, lock out the controls, or block the drum from rotating. Employee #1 and his brother got inside the drum, scraped the screens, and then cleaned the ground and area around the conveyor at the back of the machine. When the drum was nearly cleaned, the brother went around to the front of the machine and turned it on, unaware that Employee #1 had climbed up onto the conveyor and was standing in the drop chute. The drum rotated, and struck Employee #1 in the back of head, fracturing the back base of his skull. He was then knocked into the side of the drop chute, where the next section of the drum crushed his head, broke his jaw and right temple, and lacerated behind the left ear. A 4 to 5 in. space existed between the drum and drop chute. Almost immediately after starting the machine, the brother turned it off, realizing that something wrong. He walked around the machine and found Employee #1 lying at the bottom of the conveyor below the drop chute. First aid was applied by local paramedics and Employee #1 was transported by ambulance to University of California Davis Medical Center, Sacramento, CA, where he died on December 29, 1992.

Keywords: HEAD, ROTATING PARTS, WORK RULES, CLEANING, DRUM, LOCKOUT, CRUSHED, CONVEYOR, COMMUNICATION, UNSTABLE POSITION