Employee #1 and several other employees were inside a barge, unloading steel H-beams to a truck on shore. The beams were being hoisted by a lattice boom crane. The operator was relying on a signalman to help him get the beams out of the barge because he could not see the inside of the barge from the crane operator’s position.
Employee #1, who was inside the barge, was crushed between two of the 49-foot beams and the inside of the barge sidewall. He was killed.
What went wrong?
The signalman did not adequately communicate either with the crane operator or the employees inside the barge. In addition, taglines, which could have guided and stabilized the load, were not in use.
At approximately 1:15 p.m. on November 25, 2013, Employee #1 had loaded an excavator onto a river barge that was being transported away from an island. A tugboat was pulling the barge. Employee #1 was inside the cab of the excavator as the tugboat moved the barge along.
The barge may have struck a sand bar that caused the excavator to fall off the barge and overturn in approximately 15 feet of water. The cab was buried in fine silt, which trapped Employee #1 and caused him to drown. Search and rescue divers extracted his body hours after the incident.
