Teenage employee killed in workplace accident

On behalf of Jeffrey Frederick of Frederick & Hagle posted in Workplace Accidents on Thursday, July 23, 2015.

The death of a person in a workplace accident is virtually always a devastating tragedy. Most of the time, Illinois employees are simply trying to complete their work duties when negligent or sub-par safety precautions fail to protect them. After a terrible workplace accident during an overnight warehouse shift, a 19-year-old employee was killed.

The young man was employed at an unnamed out-of-state warehouse, where part of his work duties included the use of a forklift. Just prior to the accident, reports indicate that the employee was using the forklift to move appliances from the warehouse onto a truck. For reasons that are at this point unclear, the driver of the truck was under the impression that the forklift driver had completed transferring the appliances and began to drive forward.

Unfortunately, the worker was still in the process of moving products onto the truck when it began to move. The forklift subsequently fell, and its operator took a fatal blow to his head. At the time, he had only worked at the warehouse for about a month.

Toxicology tests are being conducted as part of the investigation into the workplace accident, although this is a standard procedure and no an indication that any involved parties were under the influence. However, the completion of an investigation is not a necessary prerequisite for filing for workers’ compensation benefits. This means surviving family members of individuals killed in workplace accidents in Illinois can choose to file for death benefits through the workers’ compensation system before the official investigation has concluded, which is especially important for those who relied on their loved one as a source of primary or secondary income.

Source: riverbender.com, “Coroner’s office assists Pontoon Beach Police in morning workplace death at East Gateway Commerce Center“, July 15, 2015