Action Services Inc: OSHA inspections and violations

Incident on Oct 5, 2022 (fatal): Employee dies after being struck in the head by falling tree

At 10:00 a.m. on October 5, 2022, an employee was working with coworkers conducting site clearing work. The employee was assigned to pull roots off a nearby building pad and remove silt fencing from the northside of the site near the tree removal operation. A coworker was assigned to operate a Hitachi ZAXIS 300LC excavator to fell trees from the northside of the site. One tree the coworker had felled was an approximately 81-foot-tall tree. During the removal operations, the coworker checked his surroundings, dug around the tree, and pulled the tree out of the ground using the excavator bucket with welded thumb attachment. The coworker yarded the tree to the landing near the GC trailer towards the exit of the jobsite using the same excavator. On the way back to the tree removal operation, the coworker noticed the employee next to a 6-foot dirt pile approximately 15 feet away from him. Before felling the next tree out of the ground, the coworker conducted the normal routine check to make sure no person was in the area. The equipment operator went to fell the tree out of the ground. With the tree already in motion, the coworker saw the employee standing in the area the tree was free falling. The employee was standing near two dirt piles, approximately 6-foot high on the side of the excavator operator. After noticing the employee so close to the tree removal operation, the coworker attempted to stop the excavator bucket and reverse the motion away from the employee. Since the tree was so large and the employee was so close, the tree struck the employee in the head causing blunt force trauma and he died. The employee was transported to a medical center for treatment but died later that day.