Two contractor employees were in the process of disposing scrap sprinkler pipe when one of the contractor employee's thumb was caught in
between the pipe and the dumpster resulting in a serious injury. The contractor
employees were placing a piece of a 10 foot section of 3” schedule 40 pipe into a
7.5 feet tall dumpster by raising the pipe up and over their heads and out of
their line of sight into the dumpster. During this action, the pipe came down
on the contractor employees thumb resulting in injury.
Factors to consider
at your site or on your project include, but are not limited to, the following:
Retrain
the contractor employees on overnight work procedures.
Contractors instructed to wait until
next shift to dispose of materials that need extra planning (i.e. use of Lull
or other material handling equipment).
If material handling equipment is not
available, contractor employees instructed to open door on end of dumpsters
Process related root cause initiative
to investigate all site dumpsters that are tall and present sight obstructions
or loading difficulties