A Fairfield man died Tuesday morning after being crushed by a tractor implement he was cleaning in a Sonoma Valley vineyard, authorities said.
Franklin Palacios Carrillo, 34, was found by another vineyard worker about 7:30 a.m. pinned beneath his tractor’s tiller attachment, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office said.
Carrillo was working in a vineyard managed by Walsh Vineyards Management and was apparently trying to remove a tangle of vineyard wire from his tractor’s tilling tines when the implement dropped and crushed him, according to Cal-OSHA, which is investigating.
The property where Carrillo was found, Arrowhead Vineyard, off Napa Road east of Nicholas Road, has been owned by Gundlach Bundschu Winery, though ownership could not be confirmed Tuesday.
Gundlach Bundschu Winery is listed as a client on Walsh Vineyards Management’s website.
Neither business responded to requests for comment.
When Schell-Vista firefighters arrived on the scene, they found the man trapped beneath the tractor, said Capt. Tony Anderson. By the time they were able to free him, it was clear he was dead, Anderson said.
“It appeared somebody was out there trying to do some kind of repair, and it went bad,” he said.
The death is the first investigated at a Sonoma County vineyard in at least a decade, according to Cal-OSHA records.
In April 2016, a vineyard worker drowned in a reservoir at a St. Helena vineyard, Cal-OSHA records show. Four months after that, Cal-OSHA investigated the death of a Napa winery employee, who died while working at Joel Gott Wines after a stack of metal wine barrel racks fell on him.
The investigation into what happened Tuesday at the Sonoma vineyard could take three to four months, and Cal-OSHA has six months to issue any citations for violations of workplace safety regulations, said agency spokesman Frank Polizzi.
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Cal/OSHA is investigating a fatality at a Sonoma vineyard following the death of a worker on Tuesday morning.
The man, an employee of Walsh Vineyards Management in Napa, was working at Arrowhead Vineyard on the 2300 block of Napa Road in Sonoma when a tractor’s tiller attachment fell on him, according to reports.
The man’s body was found when another worker arrived shortly before 8 a.m. Responding deputies discovered that vineyard wire had gotten tangled in a tractor’s tilling lines and, as the worker tried to untangle the lines, the tiller attachment dropped, crushing him, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.
The worker’s death is being investigated as an industrial accident and has been referred to Cal/OSHA. His name has not yet been released.
Cal/OSHA has six months to issue any citations for violations of workplace safety regulations, agency spokesman Frank Polizzi said Tuesday.
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Vineyard worker dies after being crushed by tractor part
2nd May, 2018 by Phoebe French
A man working at Arrowhead Vineyard in Sonoma has been killed after being crushed to death by a tractor’s tiller when trying to remove some wire from its tines.
The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office received a call just before 8am local time on Tuesday 1 May from Arrowhead Vineyard, located in the 2300 block of Napa Road in Sonoma, following reports that a worker had died.
Officers who attended the address were told that the man had been attempting to free some wire caught in the tilling tines. It is thought that while trying to do this, the tiller attachment fell on him and crushed him to death.
The man was discovered by another worker who found him apparently deceased and trapped under the tiller, according to the authorities.
The coroner’s office subsequently identified the man as 34-year-old Franklin Palacios Carrillo from Fairfield.
The incident is now being investigated by the Californian Division of Occupational Safety and Health “Cal OSHA” who, according to Sonoma County Police, will examine the tractor and other equipment in order to determine exactly what happened.
CAL OSHA spokesman Frank Polizzi said inspections generally take anywhere from a few weeks to several months. The board now has six months to issue citations for any violations of workplace safety regulations.
It is believed that Carrillo was an employee of Walsh Vineyards Management who oversee the vineyard.