Inspection Detail

Inspection: 307584425 - National Builders, Inc.

Inspection Information - Office: Nv-E-Las Vegas 0953220

Investigation Summary

On April 20, 2004, Employee #1 was installing a roof sheathing and entered the west garage area of Building number 47, a two-story apartment building, to get nails. At the same time, a forklift operator was preparing to set a bundle of oriented strand board (OSB) panels on the trusses and staging jacks, approximately 24 ft above the ground level of the west garage. The bundle of OSB panels slid off the front of the forklift forks through two trusses and the sheathed second floor onto the garage floor. They spread west through a bearing wall and north onto Employee #1, who was standing in the garage. There were 77 sheets of the OSB, which fell and each sheet weighed 48-50 pounds. When the bundle began to fall, the forklift operator looked down and saw Employee #1. The operator attempted to warn Employee #1, but it was too noisy for him to hear the operator. Employee #1 was hit from behind, pushed to the concrete floor and covered by several OSB panels. The forklift operator then retracted the boom and lowered it, so he could boom it into the garage and lift the panels off of Employee #1. The other employees came down from the upper floor and roof trusses and one of them determined that Employee #1 was still breathing and had a pulse. Employee #1 sustained multiple fractures and internal injuries. The Supervisor called for an ambulance. The Las Vegas Fire Department responded to the call and found the Employee #1 to be beyond resuscitation. The primary contributing factors were lack of training and overloading the forklift. The employer did not train and evaluate the forklift operator. Also, Employee #1 did not receive a new employee training, which was required by the written safety program.

Keywords: BOARD, PANEL, INDUSTRIAL TRUCK, FRACTURE, TRUSS, ROOF, BUILDING, CONSTRUCTION, FALL, STRUCK BY