Inspection Detail

Inspection: 300580164 - West Texas Utilities - Ft. Phantom Power Plant

Inspection Information - Office: Lubbock Area Office

Investigation Summary

Three employees of an electric utility had been instructed to clean out a retention pond with a rented John Deere front-end loader. After they had filled one trash receptacle with the wet dirt, the employees lined the next receptacle with plastic as instructed by the company and the local landfill operator. The employees had dumped one load of dirt into the second receptacle. The liner, which had been taped to the receptacle, came loose. The loader operator got out of the loader, which was about 6.5 meters from the receptacle. He had left the loader in neutral and had not engaged the parking brake or lowered the fully loaded bucket. The other two employees, who had been sitting in a pickup truck just southeast of the pond, saw what had happened and went to help retape the liner to the receptacle. As the employees were bending down in front of the receptacle (one on each end and one in the middle), the unattended loader began moving down a slight incline towards the workers. The loader was about 750 millimeters from the employees when the operator saw it. He yelled at the employee in the middle to move out of the way. The middle employee, who was hard of hearing, only looked at the operator before the raised bucket struck the right side of his neck. He died of injuries sustained in the accident.

Keywords: BRAKE, LOADER, NECK, STRUCK BY, UNMANNED, RUN OVER