Miscommunication leads to forklift driver death

There's a reason Dock Locks were invented.
Feel bad for his kid.
What a crappy way to go. Lost a friend in Somalia bout the same way. He was getting on to a duce, and the driver lurched forward after he was told everyone was ready. My friend fell off the back, and hit the pavement head first.

 

What a sad story, both of them.

I remember the story of a driver's wife (she was co-driver as well) that got trapped in a trailer when she walked in front of a forklift, and got pinned in the trailer (between skids). They found her when the driver delivered the load a few days later.

 

Really no excuse for this one happening. If the warehouse didn't have some form of dock locks, then they should have a policy in place to either disable the trailer brakes by locking out the red gladhand, or confiscating the truck keys while the trailer was parked at the dock. This never needed to happen. Bet OSHA takes a long hard look at the practices of this warehouse.

 

Whenvever I pull away from a dock, I always make sure the inside door is closed. I check it again before I get in the truck and when I pull the chocks. I always try to make sure the forklift driver knows the truck is going to move.

 

This one sounds like a major miscommunication of the warehouse part and the driver not paying attention to what is going on

 

All of the above are right. HOWEVER, regardless of the dock policies, it is the responsibility of the TRUCK DRIVER to know his rig is safe before he moves it. Just a few seconds here would have saved the life of the fork lift driver, and saved years of regret on the part of the truck driver.

Now having said that, how often have I pulled away without a "last look." Bet I won't do it again after reading this thread.

 

The only question that I have here is how many of you have ever not felt a forklift entering or exiting the back of your truck. My guess is that the forklift was heading towards the rruck when it pulled away, rather than being in the truck and heading out of the trailer as it pulled out. Either way, the accident was needless. I can't imagine that this dock didn;t have a dock lock system, a light signaling system, or procedures in place to prevent this. They get inspected by risk assesors from their insurance agency, and i am amazed if they didn;t have these devices in place. In fact, I am not sure about the regulations, but It would not surprise me if OSHA requires toose devices at a warehouse.

 

This is MR. macngeo- I had a forklift operator fall out of my truck at a dock WITH signal lights and lock and door. I had backed into the dock I was assigned and while talking to the lumper super. he decided to have me move to another more open dock. I could see the dock from where we were talking and he (the super) released the lock and I walked to my truck, which took about 3 min. and as I SLOWLY pulled away I heard the dock plate drop(no big deal right) then I heard a big bang and I immediately stopped and ran back to find the forklift on the ground and the driver inside my trailer pin by his ankle under one of the forks. The lumper super got there a second later and hit the lever to lift the fork off the driver's ankle. I helped the guy out to the front as the ambulance came up. All I could understand from his very broken, spanish-laden english was" I bang on trailer... you no hear?, you no hear?" The lumper super and the shift manager both said it was not my fault but I took pics and made a report anyway. I don't feel I did anything wrong. Now hindsight is twenty/twenty and there is things I could've done and I'm sure some of you will point that out but you really don't know a situation unless you've lived it. The real victim in that guy's situation is that little boy and I hope his family can help him get through his loss.

 

Years ago when I hauled carpet I was spotting trailers in our yard for the dock to load. It was winter time and I put one in the dock and used chocks. I went around back to bring up another trailer and when I came around the trailer was about 10 foot away from the dock. The fork truck driver entered the trailer at a high rate of speed and hit the brakes as soon as the front wheels hit the trailer floor off the dock plate. He shoved the trailer out on the ice. Fork truck went to the ground and the pole of the trailer with the roll of carpet on it was still in the back of the trailer. He said he climbed off to cuss me out because he thought I pulled out and when he got to the front of the trailer there was no truck there!