KANSAS CITY, Kan. – A tree trimmer died Friday after he fell nearly 60 feet from a boom truck.
KCKPD Chief Terry Zeigler wrote in a tweet the worker was pruning trees for a tree service company when the boom bucket broke and tilted sideways.
Emergency crews responded to the location at 82nd and Garfield just before 1 p.m.
KCK police said the worker was not wearing his safety harness when the bucket he was in snapped from the boom truck.
Paramedics rendered first aid at the scene before they took the victim, a man in his 40s, to a nearby hospital where he died.
A witness told officers the worker was handling a branch that was about to hit the house.
Police believe he may have used the truck’s boom to remove the tree limb causing the bucket he was in to snap away from the boom.
Although no foul play is suspected, police called crime scene technicians to help document the scene.
“We’ll assist OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration], do whatever we can, do whatever they ask,” Officer Zac Blair, a KCKPD spokesperson said. “They’ll take the lead on that. Come in, look at a lot of photos that we’ve taken and really determine what the cause of the accident was and see if there was anything that was wrong. It’ll be up to OSHA.”
The tree trimmer worked for Alumbaugh Tree and Paving out of Buckner, Missouri.
