Fatigue on the Roadways Fatality Report

On Thursday, Sept. 26, 2019 at approximately 8:00 p.m. the involved company notified the victim, 42-year-old male construction workers, of a job assignment that would need to be completed the next day. His task was to travel to an out-of-state location to obtain building materials for an in-state job site.

To complete the job in a timely manner, the victim would have to depart his home by 2:00 a.m.  the next morning. After receiving the assignment, the victim and his spouse departed a local sporting event at approximately 8:45 p.m. in hopes of obtaining as much sleep as possible. After arriving home, the victim’s spouse stated he made preparations for the trip and went to bed at 10:00 p.m.

According to the spouse, she woke the victim up at 1:30 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 27 and he departed shortly after at 2:00 a.m. in a company-owned, 2013 Chevrolet Silverado. He was traveling on a major, four-lane interstate en route to the destination to pick up supplies when he failed to notice that traffic had stopped due to an earlier collision.

Approximately five hours into the trip, just before sunrise at 7:07 a.m. traffic on the interstate was at complete stop due to a six-vehicle, fatality collision had occurred nearly six-hours earlier.

Although this section of the highway was straight, for unknown reasons the victim failed to observe the stopped vehicles. As a result, the pickup truck driven by the victim struck the rear, left bumper of a semi-trailer at an estimated speed of 70 mph. The force of the impact severely damaged the driver’s portion of the cab. According to police reports, the victim was not wearing a seat belt at the time of the collision. No decelerating scuffs or skid marks were present at the scene which suggest the victim did not attempt to brake prior to the impact.

According to the death certificate, the cause of death was multiple blunt force trauma sustained in a motor vehicle collision.

Occupational injuries and fatalities are often the result of one or more contributing factors or key events in a larger sequence of events that ultimately result in the injury or fatality. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) investigators identified the following unrecognized hazards as key contributing factors in this incident:

• Advanced warning signage
• Fatigue-related work schedule
• Failing to wear seat belt