Inspection Detail

Inspection: 119992766 - The Cornerstone Company

Inspection Information - Office: San Diego District Office

Investigation Summary

About 10:10 a.m. on January 21, 1994, Employee #1, a 31 year old truck driver, was hauling demo dirt from a street repair/paving project to a dump site at a golf course. A farm worker asked the driver for a couple of loads of dirt for irrigation drainage repair of an onion field road. The driver obliged but the truck got struck in a pothole in the road. To lighten his load to help get out of the pothole the driver dumped as much of it as he could in the road. A backhoe operator from a nearby onion field used the backhoe to pull the dumped dirt from under the back of the truck so the rest of the dirt could be emptied from the truck bed. The backhoe operator saw the driver fall down and came to his aid. The operator called 911 from a local golf course pro shop. Paramedics transported the driver to a local hospital. Employee #1's head and neck were struck by the truck's tailgate and he suffered fractures of the skull and neck. It is possible that the backhoe had struck the tailgate.

Keywords: FRACTURE, HEAD, WORK RULES, SKULL, DUMP TRUCK, NECK, STRUCK BY, DUMP TRUCK BED