Inspection Detail

Inspection: 316348382 - Quality Custom Distribution Services Inc.

Inspection Information - Office: Monrovia District Office

Investigation Summary

At about 8:15 a.m. on December 3, 2013, an employee was working for Quality Custom Distribution Services Inc., in La Puente, CA. The employer had been in the business of food storage and distribution services for several years, and it had about 245 employees on its payroll. The employee had been working for the firm approximately 13 years as a picker and laborer. At the time of the incident, she was cleaning the floor of an aisle in a warehouse. She was in the second row from the south wall of the warehouse. At the same time, a forklift operator on the opposite side of a storage rack from her was trying to place a loaded pallet on the top shelf of the storage rack with his fork lift. This pallet pushed an identical stacked pallet in front of it off the rack. The pallet, loaded with boxes, fell approximately 7.6 meters (25 feet) to the floor of the warehouse. On the way down, it partially hit the employee. She sustained a fractured right ankle and some fractured vertebrae. She was transported by paramedics to the Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center. She was hospitalized there about 11 days for treatment. The employer reported the accident to Cal/OSHA within the timeframe required by regulation. The Cal/OSHA West Covina office initiated an inspection of the workplace on January 9, 2014, with the employer's management official at the site. The forklift operator could not be interviewed during the inspection, as he had already quit his job for some unreported reason. The employee stated during the interview that she was not aware of the task being performed by the forklift operator at the time of the incident. The investigation revealed no safety violation directly relating to this incident. The employer was cited for not providing the training records for the forklift operator upon request, however.

Keywords: FRACTURE, IND TRK OPERATOR, WAREHOUSE, CLEANING, INDUSTRIAL TRUCK, PALLET, STORAGE RACK, STRUCK BY, FALLING OBJECT, ANKLE