Potato Farming

NarrativeAt 10:52 a.m. on November 30, 2017, Employee #1 was working on an energized female electrical plug at the "load out" line near door 1N of Building A, which conveys potatoes from the storage bin into trucks for transport to the processing plant. The employee had its female plug end partially disassembled, exposing the terminals, near an energized 480 volt electrical cord that was the outgoing power for the Spudnik eliminator. Employee #1 was found unresponsive, but was revived onsite by EMS and transported to a nearby hospital, where he died later that day.

NarrativeAt 1:30 p.m. on September 30, 2017, an employee was standing next to a truck unloading potatoes onto a belt conveyor. The employee noticed a vine in the conveyor belt in the hopper on the piler and reached into the conveyor. The employee reached underneath the conveyor and had his right arm pulled into the nip point that was made where the conveyor belt and the end roller met. The employee suffered a broken right arm and several dislocated bones. The employee was hospitalized.

NarrativeAt 9:00 p.m. on September 27, 2017, Employee #1 was unloading potatoes from a truck conveyor system.The employee's clothing became caught in a five inch long, unguarded section of the conveyor drive shaft at the back of a potato truck. Employee #1 was pulled into and around the drive shaft and was killed.