The equipment that dropped an empty container on the dockworker at the State Ports Authority's North Charleston terminal had been checked twice the day before the accident for reported maintenance problems and was cleared both times for use, port officials said.

They said Friday it's too early to determine whether equipment failure was the cause of the incident.

Worker safety is the shared responsibility of unions that represent workers on the waterfront, as well the port.

Michael Clarkin, a 34-year-old union dockworker, was injured early Thursday at the terminal's container storage yard when an empty shipping container fell on his vehicle. He remained in critical condition Friday night at the Medical University of South Carolina.

Union officials said Clarkin, whose wife is pregnant and expecting their first child in April, underwent surgery Friday morning for multiple injuries.

The state Department of Labor and the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration arrived on the scene Friday to begin a joint investigation of the incident.

It is the fourth time since July a dockworker has been injured orkilled at a state-run port terminal.

"It is unusual," said Suzanne Street, who heads up OSHA's operations in South Carolina and North Carolina. "We are very, very concerned about it, all these things that keep happening. I don't know if there's any connection with them except that they're longshoring- related."

Street said OSHA planned to call in a team of regional investigators and maritime experts to look at all of the accidents and determine whether there's a correlation or whether any safety procedures need to be changed.

"We're looking for a way to impact the whole area, to get our heads together and see if there's a link between these things and get everybody to focus on the safety and any hazards," Street said.

State Ports Authority spokesman Byron Miller said the port will conduct its own investigation of Thursday's incident, and he suggested local longshoremen's associations and stevedoring firms will want to conduct similar reviews.

"It's an industrial accident, and one accident is too many," Miller said Friday. "Everyone is going to take a closer look at what's going on. I'm not aware at this time that there is anything that could have been done to prevent the unfortunate accident. Basically, we would look at any changes that might need to be made, if that is found to be necessary."

Miller would not release an initial port police report that includes specific details about the incident. He said the report wouldn't be finalized for another few days.

Clarkin is a clerk at the port and has been a member of the International Longshoremen's Association Local 1771 for about five years, local president David Hogan said. He is employed by Stevedoring Services of America.

Hogan, who praised Clarkin as an experienced dockworker, said witnesses reported Clarkin was in the driver's seat of his vehicle at about 4 a.m. Thursday in the container yard when a container "broke away (from loading equipment) and flew 40 feet through the air."

"It bounced and fell flat on his vehicle," Hogan said.

He said Clarkin was parked 35 to 40 feet away from where containers were being loaded onto a truck for transport.

Clarkin's job as a clerk is to verify that containers are being loaded, unloaded and delivered to the proper place. Clerks drive to and from loading sites at the port in their personal vehicles, and get out of their cars to verify containers are going to the right place.

Ken Riley, president of the South Carolina International Longshoreman's Association, said it appeared Clarkin "was in his vehicle in a safe place" when the container fell.

"There is no standard, but everyone who has experience knows where you can safely park," Riley said. "Where this gentleman was parked is where any one of us would park, not thinking one of these containers would come loose. We might think differently about it now."

Both union officials said they were concerned the container-moving equipment, called a toplifter, might have malfunctioned.

Workers who operate the equipment are employees of the State Ports Authority. The name of the operator involved in Thursday's incident was not available, Miller said.

Miller said two reports were made Wednesday about the equipment, a new Kalmar toplifter that was bought this summer, and that maintenance workers had checked it out twice that day and found no problems.

He said it's not uncommon for many pieces of equipment at the port -- large and highly technical, sometimes multimillion-dollar cranes and forklifts -- to have operating problems. He said maintenance checks are a routine part of daily shipping activities.

Miller stressed that even one accident is cause for alarm at the port and that port officials are willing to sit down with all the groups that work the docks, from longshoremen's associations to stevedoring firms, to see whether anything could have been done to prevent injuries.

Although the SPA owns the terminal property and equipment, the unions and firms that work the docks largely set the standards for safety and operations, Miller said.

It's an environment where man and machine frequently share very close quarters.

The toplifter in use during Thursday's incident inserts pins into the corners of each container to lift and move it. Hogan said other longshoremen working on the docks Thursday morning said it appears the container came loose on two corners before falling on Clarkin's vehicle.

The circumstances of the incident bear few similarities to accidents at other port terminals earlier this year.

On July 5, William Edward "Ed" Holst Jr., another union dockworker, died at the Wando Welch Terminal in Mount Pleasant when a crane operator mistakenly lowered a container directly on top of him.

Street, the OSHA regional director, said that after investigating Holst's death, OSHA issued a citation against Holst's employer, Universal Maritime Services, because the man wasn't wearing a reflective vest when the accident occurred.

Also on July 5, union dockworker William Rouse was hurt at the same terminal when a crane operator lowered a container onto a ship and pinned Rouse between two containers.

Eight days later, on July 13, longshoreman Roson Simmons was killed at the SPA's Georgetown terminal when three 1,000-pound rolls of paper fell off a forklift and crushed him.

Both of those incidents are still under investigation by OSHA, Street said. She said incidents involving fatalities and serious injuries usually take months to investigate.

Union officials said the string of incidents at the port this year should raise flags that there are safety issues at the port.

"The equipment, that's what needs to be investigated," Hogan said.

The port has invested millions of dollars in recent years in new crane and toplifter equipment.

But Hogan cited other concerns the union has about some container-moving procedures. He said specifically that equipment operators are often required to input container-tracking information into a computer while operating machinery at the same time.

At some other ports around the country, a clerk inputs the information from the ground while someone else is moving containers, Hogan said.

Miller said the port has had a good safety record over the years. In the past 11 years, more than 14.7 million containers have been moved on and off ships at all the terminals. In that time, up until this year's accidents, the port had only two shipping-related fatalities, Miller said.

In 1997, a worker was killed when his vehicle was hit by a truck at a terminal. Around 2000, another dockworker was killed when a container fell on him.

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