Learning by Example
July 1, 2005 — Despite the fact that Accident Alerts are und
oubtedly one of the most important and popular areas of service journalism Lift and Access provides to our readers online and in print, helping them to learn from others' mistakes and prevent similar injuries and deaths from occurring on the job, I'll admit I still have trouble doing them. As long as I've been researching, writing, and reading about lifting equipment accidents, a practice that dates back several years, I can't get help but get caught up in the details of how each individual scenario unfolded • the circumstances, the clues, the investigations, and worst of all for me, the comments from witnesses, co-workers, and loved ones. Striving to provide answers to what went wrong in each case, “Accident Alerts” are a necessary evil for all of us in the lifting equipment business. By reporting on another's misfortune or trauma, we as an industry can reflect, learn, and most importantly, remember.
Ellen Parson
Remember is exactly what I did while researching items for this issue of Lift and Access 360 • an increasingly greater percentage of which seemed to involve young people under the age of 21 than I'd recalled in previous editions. Combing through our newspaper clipping service file and surfing the Net to find appropriate examples, I couldn't help but remember a news item that came across my desk a few weeks earlier. As outlined in the last issue of 360 (click here for original release), I found the recent report from the National Consumers League (NCL) on the “2005 Five Worst Teen Jobs,” which ranked “operating a forklift, tractor, and all-terrain vehicle” as the fourth least safe summer job for teens this year, even more relevant to our readers as I came across one, then two, three, and finally four instances in a row of youths injured or killed at the hands of a forklift just since the last time I'd checked. Was this mere coincidence or did my own rudimentary research simply corroborate the study's findings in some small way? To explore the theory, I dug back into our accident archives a little deeper, only to find more evidence. To complicate matters, not all of the accidents are work related, which makes it difficult for employers to control.
- A 21-year-old landscaper, who was allegedly untrained to operate a forklift, was run over and killed by the machine.
- An 11-year-old child was crushed by a forklift after he and five other friends snuck into a manufacturing plant and decided to operate the machine.
- An 18-year-old male was killed when a forklift crushed him at a livestock feed supplement factory.
- While standing on a pallet lifted by a forklift, a 19-year-old worker fell 9-1/2 feet head first onto the concrete floor below, injuring his spine and head.
- A 20-year-old man was killed and a 17-year-old female was critically injured while trimming trees from a telehandler that tipped over.
- A 16-year-old contract employee was killed at a meat processing plant when the forklift he was operating flipped on its side after the wheels slipped off a ledge.
- A six-year-old boy died of injuries he received when a heavy machinery tire, weighing approximately 500 pounds, fell off a forklift at a family-owned agricultural supply business and struck him.
- A five-year-old boy was found dead after being pinned underneath and forklift and suffocating.
Unfortunately, the list could literally go on and on. Calling for parents and teens to reconsider the serious dangers of many forms of summer employment, the NCL compiles the least safe summer jobs list annually using government statistics and reports, results from the Child Labor Coalition's annual survey of state labor departments, and news accounts of injuries and deaths.
Specifically relevant to our readership, the report indicates that workers of all ages are killed and seriously injured by forklifts. Although most deaths associated with forklifts involve driving or operation, the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) data for 1992 to 1997 shows that nearly half of all forklift-related deaths were associated with work activities other than operating the forklift. According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH), many of the non-operator fatalities involved “working around the machine: being run over, struck by, or pinned by a forklift; being struck by a load that fell from a forklift; falls from a work surface elevated by a forklift; or riding as a passenger on a forklift.” In 1997, there were 18,754 non-fatal injuries associated with forklifts among all workers. From 1992 to 1997, there were 613 fatalities involving forklifts among all workers.
As most of you know, federal child labor laws prohibit youth under 18 years of age from operating forklifts or similar industrial vehicles. However, they are not prohibited from riding on or working from forklifts, nor are they banned from worksites where forklifts are in operation (as is evidenced in many of the accidents described above that are not work related).
According to the NCL report, the U.S. Department of Labor (
Three of five of the worst jobs detailed in the NCL report (construction and working in heights; agriculture and agricultural processing; and driver/operator of forklifts, tractors, and ATVs) would be “PROHIBITED or PROTECTIONS STRENGTHENED if the Labor Department promulgated rules to implement the recommendations in the NIOSH report.”
In the news report, the NCL called upon
As responsible lifting equipment professionals, most do their part to ensure all employees maintain proper forklift certification and training to promote a safer work environment. However, based on the steady stream of accident clippings crossing my desk each week, it seems our best is never good enough. So not only must we learn by example, such as by reading accident alerts and new training materials on a regular basis, but we must also lead by example, demonstrating to organizations such as the NCL that we can and will do better.
Note: Although the topic of this discussion focuses on youths injured in forklift accidents as it relates to the NCL's “2005 Five Worst Teen Jobs,” this equipment class is by no means alone when it comes to accidents involving youths. The problem is industry wide across all equipment classes. Lift and Access also documents and updates similar accidents on aerial lifts and cranes on a regular basis, which can be reviewed in the Accident Alert archive section on the web site.
