Text For Citation: 01 Item/Group: 001 Hazard: CRUSHING

Section 5(a)(1) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970: The employer did not furnish employment and a place of employment which were free from recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees in that employees were exposed to the hazard of being struck by and/or crushed under falling prestressed concrete panels. On or about May 16, 1990, employees were off-loading and rearranging prestressed concrete panels from a specially built "A" frame support trailer which had been previously loaded with four panels. The operation progressed to where two of the four panels had been removed from one side of the trailer, thus causing an overbalanced, unstable, condition where the remaining panels were in a vertical configuration, unsecured, and subject to falling from the trailer. Among other methods, one feasible and acceptable method to correct this hazard is to utilize the trailer's landing gear to compensate for the overbalance condition by maintaining the trailer in a near horizontal position, thus allowing the loaded panels to remain stabilized and resting at a proper angle against the "A" frame support.