A 66-year-old roadwork employee died Friday after a dump truck backed into him at a work site in Columbia County, Florida. The crash happened around 11:48 a.m. near the intersection of Southwest Manning Place and Southwest Marion Mann Terrace, where crews were working along a ditch line.
According to a report from the Florida Highway Patrol cited by News4JAX, the worker was in the dump truck's path when it began reversing and struck him. He died at the scene. FHP said the truck's driver, a 56-year-old man from Lake City, was not injured, and troopers notified the worker's next of kin.
Riverbend News reported the worker's hometown as Wellborn, while WCJB spelled it Welborn; neither report nor the FHP record released the worker's identity. Riverbend News described the crash site as being near Lake City, with road crews working along the ditch line of Southwest Manning Place when the truck began backing up and struck the man as it reversed.
Identities Withheld as Investigation Continues
The identities of everyone involved, including the driver and the worker who died, were not released in the FHP report, Riverbend News noted. It remains unclear what led the truck to begin reversing in the area where the crew was working, and no further details about the circumstances have been made public.
Work Zones Carry Persistent Risk for Crews
Fatal encounters between roadwork crews and heavy equipment are not unique to Columbia County. Earlier this month, a road worker in Pickering, Ontario, was struck and killed by a reversing dump truck, a case now under investigation by that province's Ministry of Labour, according to CP24. In Florida, a 45-year-old dump truck driver was killed overnight on I-95 in Port St. Lucie after stepping out of his truck on the northbound lanes and being struck by a southbound tractor with a sweeper attachment, per WPBF.
National data on these incidents can be incomplete. The Work Zone Safety Information Clearinghouse points to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries for highway-worker fatality figures at road construction sites, but cautions that some such deaths may never be recorded as having occurred at a construction site at all. The Clearinghouse also references a separate worker-fatality dataset covering 2011 through 2022 developed by ARTBA for the Roadway Work Zone Safety and Health Partners.
Vehicle and equipment hazards remain a leading cause of death in the industry nationally. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration states that vehicles and equipment operating in and around work zones are involved in more than half of all worker fatalities in the construction industry each year.
