In the wake of a bizarre workplace fatality, here’s some advice for workers who manually move equipment weighing thousands of pounds: If the load starts to shift, just get out of the way.
A worker was killed when a 4,500 pound steel safe fell off a dolly and crushed him at a Chase Bank branch in Key-Caryl Ranch, CO. The safe measured six feet by four feet.
The employee of Security and Safe of Colorado, 41-year-old Donald Lindsey, was helping to move the safe into a room when it tipped and pinned him against a door.
Authorities say Lindsey didn’t die right away, but rescuers couldn’t reach him quickly because the safe blocked the door.
Others were also trapped inside the room.
Firefighters had to cut through a wall to get to the victim, but by the time they reached him, he had died.
Crews had to cut through another wall to get to the others trapped in the room.
OSHA is investigating.
Lenny Guida, president of Denver’s Master Security Center, says, “If a safe starts going, we tell everyone, ‘You never try to stop it. You just get out of the way. You don’t try to catch it.'”
