Inspection Detail

Inspection: 303692107 - Allied Building Products Corp

Inspection Information - Office: Department Of Labor, Licensing And Regulation Division Of Labor And Industry Maryland Occupational Safety And Health

Investigation Summary

At approximately 4:43 p.m. on July 6, 2000, Employee #1 was driving an 8,000 lb capacity Clark forklift, model C500-Y80, serial #Y685-89-4427, to the warehouse for the night. As a rooftop loader, Employee #1 delivered shingles to a job site and stacked them on top of the buildings to be roofed. At the end of the workday, whoever arrived back at the warehouse first drove the forklifts inside to protect them from the weather and from theft or vandalism. At the time of the accident, Employee #1 was backing his forklift at a rapid speed and struck a large storage system that was loaded with wooden pallets of new roofing shingles. Each pallet held 100 bundles of shingles on it and each bundle weighed 80 lb, for a total weight of 4 tons for each loaded pallet. The metal storage racks were destabilized when Employee #1 backed into them. Coworkers heard the loud noise and saw both the shingles starting to fall off the racks and Employee #1 trying to jump clear from the forklift. They yelled at him to stay on the lift, but he dismounted and tried to outrun the toppling shingles. Employee #1 was approximately 2 ft away from the forklift when he was buried under three to five pallet loads of shingles that weighed between 12 and 20 tons. Coworkers tried to remove the shingles to assist him, but when they saw his lifeless body they decided to wait for help to arrive. Employee #1 had not been looking behind him when backing up the forklift, and had been driving too fast in reverse. He also panicked when coworkers shouted at him to remain on the forklift.

Keywords: PALLETIZED CARGO, SPEEDING, WORK RULES, STRUCK AGAINST, INDUSTRIAL TRUCK, STORAGE RACK, STRUCK BY, FALLING OBJECT, BACKING UP