Inspection Detail

Inspection: 1453611.015 - Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk

Inspection Information - Office: Long Beach District Office

Investigation Summary

At 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, December 19, 2019, an employee was working for a metropolitan county's voter registration office. He operated industrial trucks and tractors in the warehouse where election supplies were stored. All the warehouse workers were direct employees of the employer. The employee had 14 years of experience. The employee and some coworkers were relocating wheeled carts that weighed about 200 pounds (90 kg) each to another storage facility. The employee had been told by another warehouse worker aide, who was at the other warehouse, to load the carts. The employee was pushing a cart into an empty rented Budget box truck that had just backed up to the loading dock. Coworker #1 was driving the truck, and coworker #2 was in the warehouse a few feet away. The employee lowered a powered dock plate onto the truck. Coworker #1 pulled the truck away from the dock to straighten it out. As coworker #1 pulled away, the employee thought the truck's engine had been turned off. He heard the metal of the dock plate hit the metal of the truck bed and started to push the cart onto the truck. When the employee woke up in the hospital, he recalled seeing air under him and then falling approximately 4 feet (1.2 meters) from the loading dock onto a concrete surface below. The cart he had been moving fell on top of him. The truck was moved away, and the cart was hauled off the employee. The employee was taken to a nearby hospital and then transferred to a university's medical school teaching hospital, where he spent five days. He was hospitalized. The employee suffered a thoracic fracture, an ear injury, a left mandibular fracture, and a traumatic brain injury. According to coworkers #1 and #2, the procedure for loading a truck was for the worker doing the loading to wait until the truck was turned off to enter it. The driver was allowed to stay in the truck during loading. There was not a formal system of direct communication between the loaders and the truck driver.

Keywords: Brain, Cart, Chest, Ear, Fall, Fall From Elevation, Falling Object, Fracture, Head, Jaw, Loading, Loading Bridge, Loading Dock, Loading Ramp, Miscommunication, Skull, Storage Area, Struck By, Torso, Traumatic Brain Injury, Truck, Warehouse