Inspection Detail

Inspection: 310099684 - Mcguire And Hester

Inspection Information - Office: Foster City District Office

Investigation Summary

At approximately 3:00 p.m. on April 20, 2011, Employee #1 was working as a paving crew foreman at a parking lot construction job located on the campus of a local college. Employee #2 was working as the driver of a CAT AP-1055D Track Asphalt Paver, and was working in the vicinity of a dump truck that was loading asphalt into the paver. There had been over 40 similar loads made that day, all with the hitch arm assembly of the paver fully extended outward to allow the truck bed to get in a clear position for the dump. A spotter had also been present for all of these earlier loads, and the job of this spotter was to assist the alignment of the paver and truck. On this particular dump, the paver's operator was not aware that he had laterally retracted the left and right hitch arms at the front of the paver, moving the arms inward, while the dump truck carrying asphalt was backing up to offload asphalt into the paver's hopper. The spotter was also absent during this particular dump. The dump truck pulled in at an angle and the paver's left hitch arm was embedded between the outside and inside left rear tires on the rear axle of the dump truck. Employee #2 then drove the paver forward for about 15 feet before stopping with the hitch arm stuck in the rear tires. Employee #1 was called to the scene of the accident and tried to determine a way of disengaging the two vehicles. Employee #1 was standing between an adjacent roadway gate and within three feet of the vehicles. There was a blowout of the inside right tire of the dump truck. Employee #1 said he took one or two steps backward and was unconscious for a time where he landed on the opposite side of the gate rail. Employee #1 suffered initial bruising and concussive injuries to his ribs, head, neck and back and non-permanent facial dermal injuries from mixed flying debris from the tire blowout. He was hospitalized for over 24 hours at Stanford Hospital. The Division did not issue an accident-related citation because no violation of Title 8 of the California Code of Regulations was determined to have caused the accident. Operator error appeared to be a primary factor in the incident. However, the operator had at least 3 years of experience in that position. Employer stated there had never been a prior instance of this particular sequence of events or results and has taken effective steps to ensure or limit the chance of such reoccurrence. The general contractor was not involved in any of the immediate events leading up to the incident and had no knowledge of it while it was in progress. General citations unrelated to the accident were issued to both employers for failure to document all required heat illness prevention procedures in writing.

Keywords: HEAD, UNCONSCIOUSNESS, BLOWOUT--TIRE, BACK, LACERATION, RIB, NECK, CONTUSION, TIRE