Inspection Detail

Inspection: 120018767 - Hyatt Corporation Dba Hyatt Regency San Francisco

Inspection Information - Office: San Francisco District Office

Investigation Summary

Employee #1, a garbageman at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, suffered a serious back injury while emptying the trash into a trash compactor. On September 7, 1993, at approximately 10:30 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in San Francisco, Employee #1 was doing his regular duty of emptying the garbage. He said the trash compactor had some deficiency with the mechanism of the compactor's arm. It would not lift the cans high enough or, at the highest point, could only empty 80 percent of the garbage, leaving 20 percent in the can. As a result, Employee #1 had to empty the rest manually in order to empty 100 percent of the garbage. According to Employee #1, he reported the deficiency of the machine to his supervisor and he reported it to the engineering department. However, the engineering department does not have any knowledge of such report. Employee #1 took himself to California Pacific Medical Center. He was not hospitalized, but was given 28 days off from work because of a lower back injury. It has been determined that the serious injury described was caused by an independent act on the employee's part. No one from management of Hyatt Regency Hotel told the employee to manually lift the garbage cans into the bins in order to empty 100 percent of the garbage. Therefore, no violation of any standard, rule, order, or regulation set forth in Title 8, California Administrative Code and divisions of the California Labor Code occurred in connection with the above-described industrial accident. However, other violations of safety orders not related to the accident were noted and the employer was cited accordingly.

Keywords: WORK RULES, BACK, MANUAL MAT HANDLING, TRASH COMPACTOR