A college student worked as a construction labourer during the summer, and was performing the duties of directing traffic at a construction site. On the day of the incident, the student was inadvertently backed over by a front-end loader and got seriously injured.

The student had entered the moving equipment’s immediate work area. The equipment operator lost sight of her. The front-end loader’s backup alarm was not working at the time of incident, and the equipment operator had complained to the supervisor few days before. Since the student was hired for a summer, the company had just provided a brief safety training program for her.

What went wrong in this situation, and what control safety measures could be in place?