Date of incident: January 2023
Notice of incident number: 2023190500002
Employer: Fish-processing company

Incident summary
Two workers were operating forklifts near a partially open swing gate. One worker stopped his forklift in the road. The other worker drove around the stationary forklift, steered around a pothole, and moved his forklift toward the gate. The top rail of the gate struck the worker inside the cab, and he sustained fatal injuries.

Investigation conclusions

Cause

• Forklift struck partially open gate. The gate was partially open and angled toward the pothole. When the worker moved the forklift around the pothole, he inadvertently steered directly at the end of the top rail of the gate. The forward motion of the forklift caused the top rail to enter the operator’s cab and strike the worker.

Contributing factors

• Failure to push gate into latched position. When the gate was pushed open before the incident, it was not pushed hard enough to go into the latch on the gate latch post. Rather than being secured in the open position, the gate was left partially open at an angle. The gate’s position was not perceived as a hazard because there was no mobile equipment on the road, so it would have looked like there was enough room for the forklifts to travel past the gate.
• Worker did not see gate. When the worker drove around the other forklift, the end of the partially open gate was pointing straight at him; in this orientation, he likely did not see the gate. Two additional mast section rails on the forklift in motion (which increased the forklift’s height capability) and the front left post of the overhead protective structure would have blocked the worker’s left-forward and left-peripheral vision, which is where the gate was positioned.

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