Inspection Detail

Inspection: 1471998.015 - State Of California Department Of State Hospitals

Inspection Information - Office: American Canyon District Office

Investigation Summary

At 5:00 p.m. on April 1, 2020, an employee working as a social worker was onsite at a psychiatric hospital that holds a population of over one thousand civil and forensic patients. The hospital employs more than two thousand at the facility and maintains over 100 buildings on a 1174-acre campus. The campus has over 20 miles of roads of which 10 miles are paved. The employee was in the process of leaving work and walking east on a sidewalk along a drive heading toward her parked vehicle when she tripped and fell on an uneven sidewalk. The location where the tripping accident occurred has an expansion joint in the sidewalk that was photographed and measured. The greatest height variance between the edges of the joint on the side of the walk measured approximately 7/8 of an inch. The employee stated that she was not looking down at the sidewalk and was wearing low heal flat boots that caught on a part of the sidewalk causing her to fall. The employee and as coworker who saw her fall stated that they walk the section of sidewalk on a daily basis and had not noticed the tripping hazard and were not aware of any safety issues with the sidewalk. The sidewalk involved in the accident had not been identified as a tripping hazard at the time of the incident and was not part of the current sidewalk repair project. The employee was hospitalized to treat left wrist fractures and dislocation.

Keywords: Blunt force, Blunt force trauma, Dislocated, Fall, Fall On Same Level, Fracture, Hospital, Pavement, Uneven, Uneven Ground, Work Surface, Wrist