By Bill Lindelof
blindelof@sacbee.com
State occupational safety officials have been notified in the wake of the death of a worker who was nearly decapitated this morning when he was pinned between his cherry picker and the front of a big box store in Natomas, a Sacramento Fire Department spokesman said.
The middle-aged man, who was not identified, was working on electrical lights at the Staples store, 3631 Truxel Road, in the Natomas Marketplace about 7 a.m. when he was killed, the spokesman said.
The worker, an employee of Century Lighting & Electric, raised his articulated boom and basket to work on lights near an overhang at the front of the store. The lighting company employee, working by himself, had deployed stabilizers on the truck equipped with the boom basket.
Battalion Chief Niko King said the worker then moved the basket, apparently trying to position himself at the overhang at the front of the store. King said the man's hands were on the controls in the basket and he was facing away from the building, King said.
King said the man's upper body was crushed when he was pinched between the overhang and a bar in the basket. The man's co-worker telephoned 911 when he arrived to find his colleague pinned in the cherry picker, King said.
The store had not yet opened.
It is not known if the man's death was caused by operator error, a medical reason or a mechanical failure, King said.
King said that the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health, also known as Cal-OSHA, will investigate.
King said state investigators are likely to look into the policy of the business about employees operating equipment alone and whether there was mechanical failure.
"The coroner will look at whether a medical problem caused him to have the operator error - if it was operator error," said King.
Sacramento firefighters, the first responders, placed a ladder against the store wall to reach the man and retrieve the body, King said.
King said the grisly scene could affect firefighters.
"He's pretty much decapitated and disfigured," King said. "Now it is time to take care of our own people and do a critical-incident stress debriefing. We want to make sure we don't have any ongoing issues with our firefighters."
Call The Bee's Bill Lindelof, (916) 321-1079.
KCRA: Worker killed at Natomas Marketplace
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