An employee assisted with lifting a sand/salt spreader out of a truck onto a steel stand for work to be done on the sander chain. The employee went to unhook the chain from the excavator bucket. They climbed a fiberglass/steel ladder and then got onto the grate of the sand/salt spreader. The employee fell 8 feet from the grate to the gravel driveway. The employee was hospitalized with fractures to their vertebrae, ribs, and pelvis.