For anyone that doesn't know, a tipper is a stand alone piece of equipment that the tractor trailers back onto to dump their loads in the landfill. Most dump the trailer after the truck uncouples, but some will lift the entire truck and trailer
When that deck is in the down position, it is normally angled from back to front, so the trucks have to back slightly uphill. The big blue wall the truck is backed into is called the backstop, and the way I read that story the employee was pinched between the truck and the backstop. It's doubtful the truck was in neutral with the brakes off and just rolled into him. This is just a very sad, scary story, and another sad example that I shared with all of my operators at lunch today.
We see 130-160 trucks per day, and several times per day we will interact with these trucks with either a man on the ground, or a piece of heavy machinery. Trucks can get stuck and have to be pushed or pulled, spotters will be on the ground, trash can get hung in the chute in the tipper...
The cardinal rule is always make contact with the driver before doing anything around, or to, their truck. Landfills are busy places, trucks and equipment never stop moving. Many drivers get paid by the load, not by the hour, so everyone is in a hurry. We deal with a lot of weight and a lot of horsepower, so very few accidents are small. Almost every accident results in significant damage to equipment, and my fear is always what would happen if it ever involved a man on the ground.
This is what would happen. It's so sad. It's a preventable accident, and if a driver was in fact driving the truck when it ran into that man, he will have to live with that for the rest of his life. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, and my biggest fear is having to call one of my employees' wives one day and tell her daddy isn't coming home