There are risks in the workplace that are not only difficult to recognize, but are also sometimes the result of trying to work more efficiently and safely. That’s why with Construction Safety Week 2026, May 4-8, which emphasizes recognizing energy hazards, we’re thinking of Franklin Allen Burke Jr., a 47-year-old union worker who died last September 25 working on the airport access road in Kenner, Louisiana, as part of a Boh Bros. crew. Lower Ninth Ward, had been employed by the contractor
for 25 years, he was known as “Big Burke” and was a father, son, husband and brother. According to federal safety officials, his crew was using a vacuum excavator, which is a truck equipped with a tank and a powerful suction hose, to speed up work that would otherwise involve laborious digging by hand or machine and is especially valuable for exposing underground utilities before construction begins. Another tool that is often used is a wand that releases water or air at high pressure. It’s unclear how Burke died, except that it involved a crush hazard and the truck’s extendable hose reel, a U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspector said.
Vacuum excavators have been in use for many years and their dangers are well known. Its tanks can be raised like a dump truck bed and the hoses and rods can exert powerful suction or high-pressure air and water currents.
A nifty feature on some models is the ability to extend the hose reel in front of the cab from the truck’s fender and rotate it to better position the hose to reach the material. Some models even have controls on the front of the truck roller so operators can stay within the width of the truck, looking at the machine, and not have to venture close to traffic on the sides.
There are always pinch points and crushing hazards with large, heavy truck equipment, but when using the vacuum excavator hose reel with controls that can change its position, there is a potential danger to anyone around it or who is located between the front fender and the truck reel.
Safety Week is a good time for employers to help field crews perceive hazards in workplaces so familiar to them that hazards are often overlooked.
In an Internet safety video we reviewed, the narrator says that the control panel for all functions of a truck model vacuum excavator is located on the back of the hose reel, outside the arc of the rotating reel, so the operator “is not wedged between the hose reel and the bumper when the reel is rotated to the side of the truck.”
OSHA did not explain in its accident report, nor did it respond in time to an ENR inquiry, exactly what created the hose reel pinch point that killed Franklin Allen Burke Jr. Our point is that Safety Week is an opportunity for employers to help field crews perceive high-energy hazards that are difficult to detect because they are part of a familiar workplace where danger is easy to overlook.
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“Hazardous energy comes in many forms,” explains a Safety Week video, “and can include gravity, motion, mechanical, electrical, pressure, chemical and temperature.”
Constructionsafetyweek.com is full of training resources. Their use can help reveal dangers that are not easily seen and can save lives.
