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Unsecured Forklift Leads to Fatality

SOURCE: Forklift Action News, Howard, WI, USA. For forklift training visit our operator training page http://www.scmh.com/forklift-training-los-angeles/

A driver neglected to secure a forklift after loading it on the cargo bed of a box truck and paid for the mistake with his life, according to an investigative report from the Brown County Sheriff’s office in Green Bay, Wisconsin. 

The report dealt with the circumstances of a gas tank decompression that killed the driver, Gerald Throw Sr, 55, of Sobieski, Wisconsin and injured his passenger, Jose Perez, 29, of Green Bay on the afternoon of 3 April. Perez was treated at St Mary’s Hospital.  “The (forklift) in the cargo area of the truck rolling forward and then the fork piercing the CNG cylinder is the only cause of this incident,” concludes Deputy Scott Vande Voort in the final 30 June report of the crash reconstruction team. 

As part of his job, Throw loaded the three-wheel, battery-powered Yale ERP040 forklift into the white dual-axle truck and set the forklift’s parking brake. The workers intended to carry the forklift about 300 yd. (274 m) on a two-lane road between Howard facilities of Ace Manufacturing Industries Inc, a provider of machining, painting, assembly and testing services. 

Throw was driving at about 20 mph (32.2 km/h) and began to turn into a plant driveway. The change of momentum pitched the forklift forward with the tynes puncturing the front panel of the cargo area and one of the truck’s five Hexagon Lincoln-made composite Type 4 pressure vessels. A fibreglass web was shredded. 

The sudden decompression of the natural gas blew apart the cargo area, blasted off the drive shaft, kicked up the cab area, separated the back motor mounts and bent the frame, according to Capt Randy Schultz. The explosive noises and pressures were heard and felt blocks away. 

The forklift weighed 6,396 lb. (2,878 kg), and the batteries added 2,600 lb. (1,170 kg). 

As the forklift was removed from the truck after the incident, a high-pitched squeal could be heard coming from the vicinity of the parking brake system. When the system was disengaged, the squealing would stop. 

The forklift’s parking brake system was operating properly and had been fully engaged, according to 10 April inspections by Walter Girardi, president and mechanical engineer at Girardi Consulting in Galesburg, Michigan, and Kerry Whitman, senior service technician with local Yale dealer Fairchild Equipment Inc in Green Bay. 

The parking brake system is designed to hold a forklift in place at a grade up to about 15%, but not to prevent the truck from rolling during transport.