Inspection Detail

Inspection: 311088629 - Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative Of Florida

Inspection Information - Office: Fort Lauderdale Area Office

Investigation Summary

An employee was driving a Vanguard tractor (Model No. V-215PH) with three empty containers. (The employee was Jamaican, but understood English.) The employee was driving the tractor along a dirt road to meet some harvesters so that he could load the three empty containers with sugarcane. A coworker saw the tractor veering towards a canal, but could not see the driver. The tractor came to a stop partially submerged in the canal, and the employee was lying nearby, about a meter from the canal. He had been severely injured, apparently from being run over by the tractor. He died of blunt-force injuries to the chest. An investigation found that the tractor was in the crab position, in which the tractor crawls toward the left, as a crab would. The tractor driver would normally operate the tractor in this position only when it was stuck. Otherwise, the driver would operate the tractor in the two- or four-wheel steering position. The employee had been working as a tractor driver since June 2000. Weather was not a factor in the accident; it was mostly cloudy and around 19 to 23 degrees Celsius. The company provided training to its operators and had safety procedures for field and harvesting operations. According to the company's maintenance records the last preventive maintenance on the tractor was performed on August 9 thru August 14, 2007.

Keywords: CHEST, AGRICULTURE, CRUSHED, TRACTOR, RUN OVER, MECH MALFUNCTION