On September 22, 2021, about 2:40 p.m. local time, a W.T. Byler Company contract equipment operator was struck and killed by a suspended load of steel grating material that he was transporting with the boom and stick of a roadway maintenance machine on the Union Pacific Railroad Del Rio Subdivision near Castroville, Texas.
We determined that the probable cause of the September 22, 2021, equipment operator fatality was the use of a roadway maintenance machine to move a load of steel grating panels suspended in front of the machine with a clamping work head attachment that was not designed for use with such a load.