Inspection Detail

Inspection: 310813217 - San Diego Gas & Electric

Inspection Information - Office: San Diego District Office

Investigation Summary

At 11:00 a.m. on September 12, 2007 a 51 year old equipment operator working for a utility company at a work location in a rural area of Bonita suffered serious injury when the forklift he was driving disturbed a large hive of probably Africanized honey bees. Employee #1 was transported to Scripps Chula Vista where he was hospitalized for just over 24 hours. The worksite where the accident occurred was a facility called the Miguel Yard where supplies for electrical installations such as insulators that go onto transmission poles were stored. The location included a large fenced yard with racks on a concrete pad, and a smaller area by the water tank a quarter mile down the main access road. The area was a hilly open range area not far from a major water reservoir and just up the road from an electrical sub station. The injured employee's job that day included picking up a box of insulators that had been left over from another job and stored down by the water tank. The boxes were stacked one on top of the other and were about 11 feet long. The employee checked the top box for bees because the boxes had been stored for over a year and bees were a known problem in the area. He could not see into the lower box though, and he used a forklift truck to lift the two boxes together. When he lifted the two boxes, he moved the forklift back about five feet when a swarm of bees came out of two large hives that were in the lower box. He jumped off the forklift and ran up the hill toward the main yard, but could only make it halfway with the bees still stinging him. He lay on his back on the road, covering his face with his hat and was able to call for help. He suffered multiple bee stings to his torso, back of his neck, and head, and was experiencing chest pains at the time of hospitalization.

Keywords: BEE STING, OBSTRUCTED VIEW, INDUSTRIAL TRUCK, ANIMAL BITE