Warehousing and Storage

NarrativeAt 6:30 p.m. on February 11, 2019, an employee was using a forklift to load a produce trailer. During loading, the employee activated the backward tilt lever with his foot. As a result, the employee became caught between the forklift's mast and its cage. The forklift mast tilted back onto the employee's chest, killing him.

NarrativeAt 2:00 a.m. on November 28, 2018, an employee used Toyota sit-down rider forklift, Model Number 8FGCU25, to unload plywood bundles from a railroad boxcar. The boxcar contained horizontally stacked plywood bundles, plywood in partial bundles stacked two high vertically on-edge (i.e., standing on the 8-foot long edge), and plywood in partial bundles standing vertically on-end (i.e., standing on the 4-foot wide end). The employee used a forklift to pick up and unload the horizontally stacked plywood bundles, as well as the bundles standing on-edge without getting off the forklift. The bundles standing on-end consisted of 25 plywood sheets steel banded together, giving these bundles a 4-foot by 16-inch footprint and a height of 8 feet. Each on-end bundle weighed 1,852 pounds. A plywood bundle standing on-end, unsupported on the left side of the boxcar, tipped over and fell onto the employee. The shift supervisor found the employee in a sitting position on the boxcar floor, with his back against the boxcar side wall opposite the side wall against which the on-end bundle had stood, his legs extended out on top of the fully-lowered forklift forks, and with the plywood bundle lying on top of him.