Abstract: At approximately 7:56 a.m. on June 9, 2006, Employee #1 was laying pipe at the site of a new house under construction in Victorville, CA. His employer was a trenching and excavation contractor engaged in laying main and other water lines at new development job site. At the time of the accident, Employee #1 and his coworker, a backhoe operator, tied a bundle of twenty PVC sprinkler pipes, each of them 1 inch in diameter and 20 feet long, to the left cab handle of a Ford New Holland Model LB75b backhoe excavator. They used a long 0.5-inch diameter nylon rope with its one end loosely hanging on the ground to attach the bundle. After the bundle was secure, the backhoe operator walked around the backhoe, climbed into the cab, and started its engine, while Employee #1 was standing on the ground. The operator checked with Employee #1 and began driving in reverse, at which time Employee #1 tried to grab the loosely hanging end of the nylon rope by wrapping it around the index finger of his right hand. The nylon rope got caught under the moving left front tire and severed Employee #1's finger. Employee #1 was taken to the Loma Linda University Medical Center in Loma Linda, CA, for treatment. He was there for six hours while surgery was performed, but he was not hospitalized. He was a regular employee of the employer.