A 35-year-old landscaper from Mineola died Thursday afternoon after falling from a work truck in East Hills, in an incident that Nassau County Homicide Squad detectives are still working to fully explain. Jose Hernandez Argueta was pronounced dead at the scene near a quiet residential intersection after officers responded to a report of a man lying in the roadway.
Nassau County Police officers responded at around 2:12 p.m. on September 10 to the call near Planting Field Road and Old Farm Road in East Hills, according to Patch. Hernandez Argueta had fallen from a landscaping work truck, and as News 12 New York reported, Homicide Squad detectives told the outlet he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators have not yet said whether the truck was moving at the moment Hernandez Argueta fell, nor have they detailed the exact nature of his injuries, according to Newsday. Those gaps leave the circumstances of the fall — and whether any safety violation contributed to it — under active investigation.
Who Was Jose Hernandez Argueta
Police confirmed that Hernandez Argueta, the landscaper who died, lived in Mineola, a village that serves as the Nassau County seat roughly five miles south of East Hills. The investigation remains ongoing, and detectives have not released the name of his employer or additional details about the crew he was working with at the time of the fall.
A Trade With Outsized Risk
The circumstances of Hernandez Argueta's death echo a pattern that federal regulators have flagged for more than a decade. New York Vehicle and Traffic Law Section 1222 restricts operating a truck with standing passengers in the cargo bed for distances over five miles unless the vehicle has securely attached seating, side racks at least three feet high, or a closed tailgate, a standard detailed in OSHA citation records. Federal safety inspectors have previously cited New York landscaping companies under OSHA's General Duty Clause for exposing employees to fall and struck-by hazards by allowing them to ride in truck cargo beds without fixed seating, restraints, or secured tailgates.
Nationally, the numbers underscore just how dangerous this line of work can be. Bureau of Labor Statistics data for 2024 shows grounds maintenance workers suffered a fatal workplace injury rate of 20.9 per 100,000 full-time workers — more than six times the national all-occupation average of 3.3 per 100,000, according to figures compiled by Tree Work Safety Statistics. Separate Bureau of Labor Statistics data cited by MiniCo Insurance Agency recorded 102 fatal occupational injuries among landscaping and groundskeeping workers nationwide in 2023 alone.
The toll compounds over time: the Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded 1,072 work-related fatalities across the U.S. landscaping and groundskeeping industry between 2011 and 2021, per FacilitiesNet. Transportation-related incidents — including falls from moving work vehicles and traffic collisions — are the single leading cause of death among grounds maintenance workers, accounting for 31% to 39% of all trade fatalities, according to CDC workplace safety research.
That same CDC surveillance data shows Hispanic and Latino workers represent approximately 31% of fatal workplace injuries among grounds maintenance personnel, with about 83% of those fatally injured Hispanic workers born outside the United States. Landscaping crews routinely travel between residential properties in heavy utility trucks loaded with mowers and machinery, a routine that safety researchers have long linked to the industry's elevated death toll.
No charges or citations have been announced in connection with Hernandez Argueta's death, and it remains unclear whether OSHA has opened a workplace safety review tied to the incident. Nassau County Police Department's Homicide Squad said its investigation is ongoing.
