occupational fatalities
cmonforton | October 1, 2014William Jeffrey Belk, 29, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Friday, September 26 while working at the Boise Cascade Wood Products plant in Moncure, NC. News reports provide some initial information on the worker’s death:
“The Chatham County Sheriff's Office says a worker at a wood products company died when a piece of machinery fell on him.”
John Sahlberg, senior vice president of Human Resources at Boise Cascade, told The Sanford Herald: "The equipment had a C-clamp, and somehow or another, the C-clamp was up and came down on him. We don't have details as to what he was doing or why the C…
egrossman | September 29, 2014There’s been a lot going on this past week so it’s likely that National Farm Safety Week, announced by Presidential Proclamation on September 19th may have escaped notice of those not working in agriculture. “America,” said President Obama in the proclamation, “depends on our farmers and ranchers to clothe our families, feed our people, and fuel our cars and trucks.” And he continued:
“While our farmers and ranchers are the best in the world, agriculture remains one of our country's most hazardous industries. Producers and their families are exposed to numerous safety and health dangers --…
cmonforton | September 18, 2014Ernesto Rodriguez, 41, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Wednesday, September 10 while working at an oil rig site in southern Oklahoma. Local news reports provide some initial information on the worker’s death:
The incident occurred at an XTO Energy well near Mannsville, OK (about 2 hours north of Dallas, TX). Rodriguez was employed by Mercer Well Service. The company’s headquarters is in Gainseville, TX, which was also Rodriguez’s hometown.
Sheriff John Smith reported “that a pipe was somehow forced out of a well hole and struck Rodriguez.”
“Rodriguez was operating a workover rig drilling…
cmonforton | September 15, 2014“OSHA nunca llego.” [Translation: "OSHA never came."] That was the disappointed phrase I heard from a worker who told me about his on-the-job injury. He was a temp worker hired by a moving company to relocate a small manufacturing company. The worker’s shoe got caught in a faulty industrial dumbwaiter and his toes were smashed. He was patched up at a local urgent care clinic, but developed a serious infection a couple of weeks later. Gangrene set in and his toes had to be amputated. He still suffers pain and walks with a limp.
The fact that “OSHA nunca llego” surprised this worker. Like the…
kkrisberg | August 27, 2014As Texas Gov. Rick Perry makes moves toward a 2016 presidential run, it seems he can’t talk enough about the so-called “Texas Miracle." But upon closer inspection, it seems clear that a “miracle” based on small government, big business tax breaks and laissez-faire regulations is hardly a blessed event for Texas workers.
In an in-depth article on workplace deaths published in the Dallas Morning News, reporter James Gordon writes that Texas workers face the highest workplace death rates in the nation. In fact, Gordon notes that a Texas worker is 12 percent more likely to be killed on the job…
Not an “accident”: Elbert C. Woods, 45, suffers fatal work-related injury at Cleveland, Ohio company
cmonforton | August 25, 2014Elbert C. Woods, 45, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Thursday, August 21 while working at Cleveland Track Material. Local reporters provide some initial information on the worker’s death:
The Northeast Ohio Media Group reports:
Woods’ clothing became stuck in a machine and he was pulled into it.
Woods’ co-workers were able to free him from the machine while they awaited response by the local fire department.
Cleveland.com notes that Cleveland Track Material:
Employs about 250 people.
The company manufactures railway track and components, such as switches that move trains from one track…
cmonforton | August 14, 2014Erik Deighton’s work-related death could have been prevented. That’s how I see the findings of Michigan OSHA (MIOSHA) in the agency’s citations against his employer, Colonial Plastics (here, here). The 23-year-old was working at the firm’s Shelby Township, Michigan location in March 2014 when he suffered fatal traumatic injuries involving a stamping press. I wrote about the incident shortly after it was reported by local press.
MIOSHA conducted an inspection of the worksite following Deighton’s death. The agency recently issued citations to Colonial Plastics for seven serious violations and…
cmonforton | August 13, 2014Failing to get the time to acclimate to a hot work environment can be deadly. That’s the message I took away from an item in last week’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
“Heat illness and deaths among workers --- U.S. 2012-2013” reports on 13 occupational heat-related fatalities investigated by federal OSHA. Nine of the 13 incidents (69 percent) involved an individual who was working in their hot job for three or fewer days. Among the cases examined by the authors, none of the employers had acclimation programs, and only five of the 13 had provided access to a cool or shaded…
cmonforton | August 7, 2014[Update below]
Stanley Thomas Wright, 47, was asphyxiated on Saturday, August 2, while working inside a tank car at a railyard in North Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports
the local fire department was called to the scene at about 1:00 am
Wright’s co-workers said he lost consciousness while inside the railcar tanker
Fox5 reports
the railcar contained ethanol vapors and Wright was overcome by the gas
it took fire and rescue crews until mid-day Saturday to make the scene safe
This incident brings to mind Ingrid Lobet's reporting from May in the Houston Chronicle: "Largely invisible…
egrossman | July 31, 2014The incident report details are horrific and heartbreaking. If this was a radio broadcast, my editors and I would likely preface what I am about to relate with a warning: “The following report contains material that may be disturbing.” On July 2nd at 2:22 p.m., an emergency call came in to the Cynthiana, Kentucky-Harrison County 911 operators to report that “a man has been decapitated his head and arm are on the ground.” The follow-up report, made available by the Harrison County sheriff’s office, explains that Joel Metz, age 28, working for Fortune Wireless on a Verizon Wireless cell tower…
cmonforton | July 23, 2014[Updated below (9/5/14)]
Jose Alfredo Isagirrez-Mejia, 29, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Monday, July 21 while working at a construction site in Fort Lauderdale, FL. The incident occurred on a $15 million project managed by Miller Construction Company. It’s the future site of a BMW/MINI dealership and service complex.
Local10.com reports the following about the incident:
a ceiling roof beam “came crashing down”
three workers were lowering the beam in place with a crane. “Something went wrong and it struck all three workers.”
The Sun-Sentinel reports:
a carpenter who was an eye-witness…
cmonforton | July 10, 2014[Update below]
Chandler Warren, 19, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Wednesday, July 2, 2014 while working at FedEx’s World Hub in Memphis, Tennessee.
WAFF reports that the Memphis Fire Department received a call at about 2:53 a.m. about the incident.
WREG reports “a loader that lifts containers onto aircraft came crashing down.”
FOX13 reports Warren was new on the job and was working as a material handler at the facility. He underwent emergency surgery for injuries that his father said were "worse than he could have ever imagined." The 19 year old survived the surgery, but succumbed to…
cmonforton | June 26, 2014Luis Castaneda Gomez, 34 and Jesus Martinez Benitez, 32 were asphyxiated in June 2011 when they were doing repairs inside a manhole. Their employer, Triangle Grading and Paving, was hired by the City of Durham, NC to make water line repairs. The firm had a history of violating worker safety regulations. Worse yet, it was not the first time an employee of Triangle Grading was killed on-the-job.
Durham, like most municipalities, did not have effective policies in place to guard against giving business to safety scofflaws. But that changed in Durham when it adopted a policy in 2012 requiring all…
cmonforton | June 24, 2014Jason Nolte, 31, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Saturday, June 21 while working at a window company in Aurora, Colorado. Local stations KMGH, KDVR and KUSA provides some initial information on Nolte’s death:
The incident occurred at about 8:30 a.m. at Manko Window Systems
Nolte was helping to unload two crates of glass
Nolte was crushed by the 4,000 pound load
A former employee of the facility said it wasn't the first time that glass fell on a worker at the plant. He said he'd give their safety program a D-minus grade.
OSHA will conduct a post-fatality inspection of the plant. If the…
cmonforton | June 23, 2014The June 2014 news on UCLA chemistry professor Patrick G. Harran’s website announces his lab’s award of an NIH grant. I wonder if it will be updated with his other news for the month?
Last week, Harran settled criminal charges with the Los Angeles County district attorney (DA) for the work-related death of Sheri Sangji, 23. Sangji was a research assistant in Harran’s lab. She'd only been on the job a few months. She was hired primarily to set up lab equipment, but on Dec. 29, 2008 she was assigned to use tert-butyllithium (tBuLi). The highly reactive liquid ignites spontaneously when exposed…
cmonforton | June 12, 2014Getting to the truth about the 2010 Upper Big Branch disaster (UBB) is what they wanted. The families of the 29 coal miners who were killed in the Massey Energy coal mine in Raleigh County, WV looked to the investigators for the answers. Jim Beck was instrumental in providing them those answers. Beck was part of the six-person Governor’s Independent Investigation Panel, and he was a key player in finding out the truth. Jim Beck died last week at age 61 from metastatic stomach cancer.
“Jim and his team gave me and the other 28 families of UBB the truth of what happened to our loved ones,”…
cmonforton | June 10, 2014Chris Williamson, 39, was electrocuted on Thursday, June 5 while making repairs to restore electrical service in the City of Florence, Alabama. Williamson worked for the city’s Electricity Department. Tom Smith with TimesDaily.com provides some initial information about the lineman’s death:
A storm earlier in the day caused a tree to fall on an electrical line in the Hickory Hills area of Florence.
Mayor Mickey Haddock said tree crews were dispatched to the scene to clear the fallen tree debris. Williamson was called upon to isolate the damaged line from the main feed.
Williamson was working…
kkrisberg | June 3, 2014Coal miner turned whistleblower Justin Greenwell is at the center of a Huffington Post article investigating how the mining industry cheats the worker safety system. Greenwell, who’s now in a legal battle to get back his mining job with Armstrong Coal, a subsidiary of St. Louis-based Armstrong Energy, tipped off federal mine inspectors that the company was submitting misleading coal dust samples to regulators. The samples are used to determine whether a mine is in compliance with safety and health standards designed to protect miners from black lung disease. According to a 2008 posting from…
cmonforton | May 28, 2014[Update 9/4/14 and 11/20/14 below ]
Juan Carlos Reyes, 35, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Saturday, May 24 while working at a construction site located in Harlingen, Texas. News reports indicate:
A Marriott Hotel is being built at the site.
Reyes was on a [boom] lift moving supplies into a fourth floor window. Reyes fell to his death.
The general contractor of the hotel is Houston-based Matrix Builders.
The firm’s profile lists more than a dozen completed hotel construction projects in southeast Texas, including Comfort Inns, La Quinta Inns, Comfort Inn and Suites, and Candlewood Suites…
kkrisberg | May 20, 2014The Pump Handle’s own Celeste Monforton was quoted in an investigative piece on the tank cleaning industry and the dangerously toxic environments that its workers face. In an investigative article in the Houston Chronicle, reporter Ingrid Lobet found that even though industry workers are coming into contact with extremely toxic and often combustible chemicals, the methods that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration uses to track tank and barge cleaning operations is woefully deficient.
Lobet begins her story with the life and death of David Godines, a Houston tank cleaner found…