Inspection Detail

Inspection: 300136678 - Robert E. Leister, Sr

Inspection Information - Office: Long Island Area Office

Investigation Summary

At approximately 10:00 a.m. on January 9, 1998, Employee #1, an independent subcontractor truck driver, was driving his1982 rig to a job site on Long Island. He had picked up a double drop trailer, owned by another company, that was preloaded with eight 6 ft by 11 ft concrete panels, each weighing between 2 and 2.5 tons. After the last panel from the previous truck had been unloaded, Employee #1 pulled his vehicle into the delivery location. He was off-loading the panels from his trailer when one of them fell on him. There were no witnesses, but the following events were reconstructed. Employee #1 had not been directed to bring his rig onto the job site but, after seeing the previous driver leaving the site, he backed his rig, unassisted, to a point about 100 ft in front of where the last truck had been. He parked it on an uneven, muddy surface, about 8 to10 ft from a pond of runoff water. Without direction and unobserved by anyone in the construction subcontractor's crew, he released all of the support straps holding his load of panels, which were resting on the supporting A-frames built into the trailer. The trailer's bed was 24 in. above the ground, and the resulting tilt made each panel on the east side stand almost vertically. Employee #1 was struck and killed almost immediately after he released the strap holding the panel that fell on him. Prior to the accident, the owner of the trailer had not provided any written procedures for loading, securing, and unloading materials. It now does not rely on drivers to secure their loads with their own web straps. Instead, company personnel secure each load before their trailers leave the yard. Changes were also made to the procedures for off-loading panels, and a crew member was assigned to meet truckers arriving at the job site.

Keywords: DELIVERY WORK, UNEVEN GROUND, UNSECURED PANEL, WORK RULES, CONSTRUCTION, STRUCK BY, TRAILER, FALLING OBJECT, SLOPE, UNSTABLE POSITION