Inspection Detail

Inspection: 312424864 - Chadbourne & Parke, Llp

Inspection Information - Office: Manhattan Area Office

Investigation Summary

At approximately noon on July 10, 2008, a mail clerk was using a Swisslog B System Selective Vertical Conveyor, with Matrix Software computer control, to send a tote box of mail from floor 33 to floor 31. The mail clerk apparently placed the tote box of mail on a part of the conveyor known as the "load bed plate." The load bed plate, located within the conveyor shaftway and accessed through an 18 inch by 18 inch vertical wall opening, was an integral part of the conveyor system. Placing a tote box on the bed plate compressed a component known as a "load bed plate switch wand", part of a sensing device that detected the presence of the tote box on the load bed plate. Using the computer keypad, the mail clerk initiated a "transaction", which involved entering the necessary coding to initiate the conveyance of the tote box to its destination. The computer accepted the transaction and initiated the conveyance cycle. This caused the load bed plate, with the tote box, to move away from the operator and into the conveyor shaft, where the conveyor would take the tote box from the load bed plate and carry it to the programmed destination. While the load bed plate was extended, the mail clerk apparently leaned through the wall opening, in an attempt to retrieve documents that had fallen to the floor inside of the conveyor shaft area. When the load bed plate returned to the retracted position, it caught the mail clerk, pinning him by the neck to the wall opening, with his head and left arm inside the conveyor shaftway. The employee was extricated from the machine and transported to the hospital, where he died several hours later.

Keywords: PINNED, TOTE BOX, CAUGHT BY, LOCKOUT, SHAFT, CONVEYOR, NECK