Lawn Pesticides Fatality File

Employee is sprayed by farm pesticides and later dies

At 1:00 p.m. on June 13, 2017, Employee #1 and Coworker #1, employed by an agricultural cooperative, were working at a farm. Employee #1 was spraying a field with a mixture of herbicide and pesticide. He was using a spraying rig truck that contained 960 gallons of the mixture. An O ring came loose on a pipe connection, and as Employee #1 repaired the O ring, his upper body was sprayed with the mixture. Later that afternoon, Coworker #1 found Employee #1 sitting in his truck and helped to wash him off further. Employee #1 was on leave for several days and then returned to work. He died at home on July 3, 2017. Subsequent reports from the Medical Examiner and a Toxicologist stated they could not definitively conclude that Employee #1’s death was due to exposure to the pesticide-herbicide mixture.

Source:  https://www.osha.gov