Be wary of work zones: Know how to stay safe when there’s a lot going on
The accident: A heavy equipment operator was part of a crew working on a resurfacing project for a county road. In need of a restroom, but with none available…
The accident: A heavy equipment operator was part of a crew working on a resurfacing project for a county road. In need of a restroom, but with none available…
The accident: A construction company was demolishing a two-story warehouse. A large portion of the building had already been razed when the second floor collapsed…
The accident: A bridge repair company was performing work on an interstate highway bridge. A barrier wall had been removed and four inches of the concrete pavement had been chipped from the bridge deck…
The accident: A crew was setting anchors in preparation for utility pole placement, using a boom truck with auger. Each anchor was attached to the auger using a coupling, which then used the auger motor to rotate the anchor and screw it into the ground. An anchor began to wobble during the setting process…
The accident: A worker was replacing structural steel members on a 280-foot-tall communications tower. Suspended 60 feet in the air, he was preparing to lower himself into position using a controlled descent system. According to a fellow crew member, the worker suddenly dropped to the ground.
The accident: A construction worker was welding a catwalk to a 15-foot-tall waste oil tank. Vapors from the tank ignited, causing an explosion that launched the worker into a truck parked more than 100 feet away…
The accident: A worker was repairing a truck body alone in his company’s shop, using an arc welding system to weld pieces of steel together and then attach them to the body near the rear of the truck.
The accident: Two laborers were installing conduit in an 8-foot-deep by two-foot-wide trench. The crew leader, who was digging the trench with a backhoe, left the area to go to the company trailer. The two laborers continued to work alone…
The accident: Three workers were repairing a water main break in a 7-foot-deep, 5-foot-wide excavation. To expose the water main, one worker working with a shovel at the bottom of the trench undercut the roadway.
The accident: Two laborers were installing water lines in a 9-foot-deep, 7-foot-wide trench with vertical walls. A corner of the trench collapsed, pinning one worker under a large chunk of dirt.
The accident: A pickup truck was towing an overloaded trailer when it caused a multiple-vehicle accident, closing one road for several hours and sending four people to the hospital. The trailer, carrying a skid steer, weighed 9,220 pounds, well over the 3,700-pound weight limit of the trailer hitch.
The accident: Going down a busy Interstate, a construction supervisor was hauling a backhoe on a trailer. The backhoe flipped off the trailer, falling onto a minivan…
The accident: A tractor-trailer hauling construction machines rear-ended a pickup truck with two men inside. The tractor-trailer ended up on top of the pickup before going off the road.
The accident: A truck driver was unloading wood chip material from his open-top trailer via a moveable floor conveyor unit. During the unloading process, the load became jammed, and the driver climbed to the top of the trailer to clear the obstruction.
The accident: After putting his machine in reverse on some banking, a rough terrain operator felt his machine start to tip. Panicking, the operator threw himself from the forklift and was immediately crushed by the tipping machine.
The accident: A crew was installing underground telecommunications cable when the trencher operator started to maneuver the trencher out of a ditch on the edge of roadway. The shoulder of the roadway gave way and caused the machine to roll toward the ditch.
The accident: A crew replacing cracked drainpipes used a backhoe to carry replacement concrete pipes to a utility trench. The backhoe operator lifted several pipes from the bed of a truck onto the loader bucket and began moving across the rubble-covered worksite towards the trench.
The accident: An operator was running a compactor over a newly created gravel shoulder on a road improvement project. In attempting to maneuver the front tires around a road sign, the operator drove the compactor too far off the shoulder and onto a 15-degree slope.