{"id":5314,"date":"2017-11-16T09:00:38","date_gmt":"2017-11-16T09:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.forkliftaccessories.com\/forkliftblog\/?p=5314"},"modified":"2023-11-14T21:19:29","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T03:19:29","slug":"lessons-learned-from-breaking-down-a-fatal-forklift-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.forkliftaccessories.com\/forkliftblog\/lessons-learned-from-breaking-down-a-fatal-forklift-accident\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons Learned from Breaking Down a Fatal Forklift Accident"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-780\" src=\"https:\/\/www.forkliftaccessories.com\/wp-backend\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/A-3-wheel-forklift-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/>The accidental death of a warehouse worker who fell to his death while improperly from a wooden pallet elevated from a forklift offers important safety lessons for other businesses.<\/p>\n<p>The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration, in its monthly &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.osha.gov\/Publications\/OSHA3916.pdf\">Fatal Facts<\/a>&#8221; newsletter for the month of November, broke down the recent accident to determine what went wrong and what steps other businesses can take to avoid similar tragedies.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What Happened<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The warehouse worker, who was not identified in the analysis, was killed after he fell a distance of seven feet from the wooden pallet he had been standing on. The pallet was elevated by a forklift, according to OSHA&#8217;s incident description.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The warehouse inventory was stored on steel storage racks with the highest shelves about eight feet from the concrete floor,&#8221; the report stated. &#8220;It was common practice for warehouse workers to place one foot or both feet on a pallet and move inventory on the top shelf while a coworker lifted them to the top shelf using the forklift, even though the equipment was not designed for this purpose.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The worker slipped on the pallet while moving the inventory and fell. He died a few days later at a local hospital as a result of his injuries.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why It Happened<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In its analysis of the accident, OSHA identified three main reasons for the accident:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The employer didn&#8217;t provide workers with the proper equipment for reaching inventory stored on higher shelves.<\/li>\n<li>The employer didn&#8217;t follow manufacturer instructions and prevent workers from using pallets on forklifts as makeshift work platforms.<\/li>\n<li>The employer didn&#8217;t provide training and certification to forklift drivers on how to safely use and operate their vehicles. Specifically, they didn&#8217;t tell drivers not to use their forklifts to lift workers without an approved personnel lifting platform.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>These shortcomings ended up costing the worker his life. But there are important lessons to be learned from this tragic accident, according to the OSHA analysis.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lessons Learned<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To prevent similar\u00a0accidents from happening in your workplace, OSHA made the following recommendations:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Don&#8217;t let workers ride on or occupy pallets lifted by forklifts<\/li>\n<li>Give workers the right tools and equipment for each task, including accessing working surfaces like elevated storage shelves<\/li>\n<li>Equipment designed for lifting workers properly should include manufactured personnel platforms specifically designed for lifting workers on a forklift. These should include fall protection such as guardrail systems<\/li>\n<li>Provide training on forklifts to all employees who work with or near them. Training needs to include formal instruction and hands-on training at a level and in a language workers understand.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Anybody who works with forklifts needs to understand that you can&#8217;t allow drivers to lift employees standing on pallets, directly on forks, or in any other specifically designed use.<\/p>\n<p>As in this accident, failing to follow the rules can be fatal.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The accidental death of a warehouse worker who fell to his death while improperly from a wooden pallet elevated from a forklift offers important safety lessons for other businesses. The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration, in its monthly &#8220;Fatal Facts&#8221; newsletter for the month of November, broke down the recent accident to determine what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[219,25],"class_list":["post-5314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forklift-safety","tag-featured","tag-forklift-safety-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Lessons Learned from Breaking Down a Fatal Forklift Accident - ForkliftAccessories.com Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lessons Learned from Breaking Down a Fatal Forklift Accident\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forkliftaccessories.com\/forkliftblog\/lessons-learned-from-breaking-down-a-fatal-forklift-accident\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lessons Learned from Breaking Down a Fatal Forklift Accident - 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