Inspection Detail

Inspection: 120269584 - Western Tree Service

Inspection Information - Office: San Diego District Office

Investigation Summary

At approximately 1:30 p.m. on July 15, 2000, Employee #1 was on a crew of eight that was assigned to do a half-day of tree trimming and brush clearing at the sides and in front of an office complex. The crew was stacking trimmed branches adjacent to the trees, and Employee #1 was using a heavy-duty Vermeer brush chipper, model BC 1800A, to chip the branches. The brush chipper stayed hitched on an enclosed dump-truck, and spewed the chips into an International Harvester 2.5 ton dump-truck. Employee #1 was wearing gloves as he chipped a pile of medium and short tree limbs by the front road. He was working alone, feeding limbs into the chipper rollers when he either lost his balance because of a snag, or was leaning forward on the 1 1/2 ft high by 5 ft long by 6 1/2 ft wide feed table while pushing on the limbs and his gloves became caught by the feed rollers. Employee #1 was pulled into the shredding blades of the chipper, whose rollers were adjusted to grab and pull in a log of at least 1 1/2 ft diameter. He was killed when his entire body was pulled slowly into the wood chipper and chopped into pieces at a rate of 4 to 6 in. per second. Employee #1, who had seven years of experience operating brush chippers, was not using a push stick or any substitute, such as a tree branch, to prevent his hand from entering the danger zone. The employer was found in violation of T8CCR 342(a) and T8CCR 3428(a), for failing to prevent Employee #1 from using his hands to push a pile of short limbs into the feed roller's blades.

Keywords: GLOVE, ROTATING KNIFE, WORK RULES, CAUGHT BY, ROLLER--MACH/PART, CHIPPER, CRUSHED, EXTENSION HANDLE