Date of incident: December 2022
Notice of incident number: 2022198010004
Employer: Road and bridge maintenance company

Incident summary
A worker for a road and bridge maintenance company was sanding a roadway in a specialized truck when the outflow gate in the box on the back of the truck (the gate the sand moves through to go from the box to the roadway) stopped releasing sand. The worker parked the truck and climbed the ladder affixed to the truck’s box to attempt to loosen the sand inside the box. He fell from the side of the truck to the ground and sustained serious injuries.

Investigation conclusions

Cause

• Worker fell from elevation. While the worker was conducting winter road maintenance, the outflow gate on the truck’s box froze or frozen sand in the truck’s box hindered the application of sand. The worker climbed the ladder mounted on the box to try to correct the problem and fell from the side of the truck.

Contributing factors

• Failure to identify hazards. It was not uncommon for an outflow gate to freeze shut or for frozen salt or sand to hinder the application of material, requiring workers to free the gate or break up the frozen material. To do so, workers would occasionally enter the box using the ladder mounted on the box, which on some models involved climbing over the arms of a load-covering mechanism for the box. The employer discussed safe ladder use in its safety meetings but did not identify the hazards associated with climbing over the load-covering mechanism in the truck’s box to deal with a gate frozen shut or clumps of frozen salt or sand blocking the gate.
• Lack of written safe work procedures. As the hazards associated with freeing a frozen gate or clearing frozen material in the box were not identified, the employer did not have written safe work procedures or a plan for performing those tasks. Instead, workers used their discretion to determine how to correct the problem.

Other health and safety issues

• Lack of new worker orientation. The worker missed the winter awareness information session provided to workers in preparation for the winter maintenance work and was not provided with another orientation. However, the winter awareness session did not address clearing frozen material in the box of a truck or freeing a frozen outflow gate, so the lack of orientation was determined not to be causal to the incident.

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