Lynwood, WA — A man was killed after being struck by a forklift in Lynwood, Washington, on Monday, August 19, 2014. The accident took place in the parking lot of a Goodwill in the 4000 block of 198th Street SW, around 10:30 in the morning.
According to reports, the Goodwill employee said he saw a “flash of blue,” right before the accident occurred. He slammed on the forklift’s brakes, which caused one of the boxes of merchandise it was carrying to fall over onto the man, whose name has not been released.
The man was taken to Harborview Medical Center where he passed away a short time later.
At this point, police are investigating to see whether the accident may have been caused through negligence, or was simply an unfortunate accident.
Scene of the Accident
Commentary
This is a huge liability issue for Goodwill, and one in which I think an important point is being ignored. A few stories I’ve read about the argument have made specific mention that the driver of the forklift had been trained. They’ve also said that he was carrying enough boxes to block his view of what was directly in front of him. I understand that that can be a byproduct of using a forklift, but if the driver knew that, why didn’t he have someone out in the parking lot spotting him? The driver very well may haven been trained on a forklift, it’s just possible that his training wasn’t very good. Yes, it’s true that training doesn’t preclude the possibility of an accident happening somewhere down the line, but it seems like there was something the driver wasn’t doing here.
— Grossman Law Offices
