Inspection Detail

Inspection: 120299573 - Long Beach Rebar

Inspection Information - Office: Long Beach District Office

Investigation Summary

At approximately 6:30 a.m. on October 16, 1997, Employee #1 and coworkers, of Long Beach Rebar, Inc., were working at the construction site of a new movie theater at the back of the Los Cerritos Center mall. They were on the bed of a 45 ft trailer, off-loading 2-ton bundles of 40 ft rebar. Their method was for all four crew members to stand by the side of one bundle, each holding a 5 ft 9 in. long by 7/8 in. diameter pry bar with one conical end and one flat end. Each man was to push the rebar bundle so that the bundle would fall to the ground from the trailer bed. At one point, most of one bundle was pushed off of the trailer bed by the three coworkers, but Employee #1 was still working on the end adjacent to where he was standing. As the bundle began to fall, it exerted tremendous pressure on Employee #1's pry bar. It flew up and the end struck him, slashing his chest and throat, and fracturing his jaw. Employee #1 fell unconscious onto the trailer bed and he was transported to La Palma (CA) Intercommunity Hospital. The crew members were not trained properly to work together and there was lack of communication between them because two of the coworkers were new.

Keywords: CHEST, UNCONSCIOUSNESS, WORK RULES, LACERATION, OFF LOADING, STRUCK BY, FLYING OBJECT, HAND TOOL, UNTRAINED, COMMUNICATION