worker fatality

by Beth Spence Last week a friend and I visited the memorial dedicated to the miners who were killed in the 2010 Upper Big Branch (UBB) mine disaster.  The massive 48-foot granite structure with 29 ghostly silhouettes is a powerful tribute to the lost miners and to the industry that has been so dominant in the Appalachian region. It is fitting that the memorial is in Whitesville, nestled in the Coal River Valley not far from where coal was first discovered in West Virginia, and that it stands on the very site where, in the days and weeks after the disaster, an organic memorial sprang up to…
[Udated below (Sept 5, 2013)] Jay Van Buskirk, 47, was employed less than a year at the ConAgra Foods flour mill in Alton, Illinois, before falling to his death on August 4, 2012.   The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports: "Van Buskirk was standing on a man lift platform and moving between the fourth and fifth floors of the nine-story flour mill when he fell. The Madison County Coroner's Office reported that the death was due to head trauma and that the fall was as much as 74 feet. According to the coroner's office, the man had complained of feeling dizzy prior to the fall." A week earlier it was…
Patty and Gary Quarles lost their only child on April 5, 2010.   Gary Wayne Quarles, 33, was part of the crew operating the longwall mining machine at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch coal mine.  He died that day in a massive coal dust explosion along with 28 other men.  Patty's and Gary's life will never be the same.  The lives of all the families and close friends of those 29 coal miners changed forever that day.  They've suffered losses that few of us will ever understand.  A recent story in the Washington Post entitled "After Massey mine disaster killed their son, settlement of millions…
Just two weeks ago, families of the 29 men who were killed on April 5, 2010 at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch (UBB) mine traveled to Washington DC to urge lawmakers to improve our nation's mine safety law.   The West Virginia natives met with Republican and Democratic Members of Congress and asked for four simple reforms targeted at the mining industry's bad actors.   They weren't asking anything for themselves.  Only for new laws to help deter unscrupulous employers from causing another disaster and causing other communities to suffer the same pain and loss the UBB families have endured.…
It's been almost two years since Daniel Noel, 47, and Joel Schorr, 38, went to work at Barrick Goldstrike's Meikle mine near Elko, Nevada, but never made it back home to their families.  They were fatally crushed on August 12, 2010 in a mine shaft by tons of falling aggregate and pipe.  As I wrote last year, management at this mine --- an operation owned by the largest gold producer in the world, with a stock market value of tens of billions of dollars --- had jerry-rigged a reset button with a broom handle and failed to replace missing clamp bolts and load-bearing plates on the aggregate…
by Beth Spence Carrying enlarged photographs of their lost loved ones, family members of three of the 29 miners killed in the 2010 explosion at West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch mine spent June 6-7 in Washington, D.C., pleading with lawmakers to take action to improve mine safety and to stiffen penalties for mining companies that knowingly, willingly and recklessly place miners’ lives at risk. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) stands with Clay Mullins, Betty Harrah, Gary Quarles and AFSC staff member Beth Spence. Photo by Bryan Vana, American Friends Service Committee. Betty Harrah’s photo showed…
Six months after Maureen Revetta's husband, Nick, 32, was killed by an explosion at the U.S. Steel plant in Clairton, PA, she was still waiting to hear from the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).   The young widow, now a single parent with a two children under age 5, had received a condolence letter from OSHA shortly after the September 2009 incident.  The letter indicated the agency was investigating the circumstances surrounding her husband’s work-related death.  It didn't mention, however, that the statute of limitations for issuing citations was six…
After 35 years of service, Mr. Sherman Lynn Holmes, 55, retired from the Pine River School District. Before long though, he gave up the life of a retiree to work as a woodsman. It was his true calling and lifelong passion. He knew the woods and trees of northern Michigan like the back of his hand. He was well-known in the region as the go-to logger. Mr. Holmes was working on February 1, 2011 for K & K Forest Products with two other men near Evert, Michigan. As he trimmed up a felled tree in a wooded area, his co-worker felled another large tree and it struck Mr. Holmes. He was fatally…
[Updated 12/28/2014: see below] Those were the first words out of the mouth of the Southwest Airlines' official when describing the incident on January 27, 2012 at Dulles International Airport that claimed the life of 25 year-old employee Jared Patrick Dodson. The five-year employee was driving a luggage cart when he was fatally struck by a three-story people mover used to transfer passengers across the airport tarmac. Scott Halfmann vice president for safety and security said young Mr. Dodson was following all procedures correctly. He was in the proper travel lane. He stopped at all…
Beau Griffing remembers how proud his mom Kristine, 52, was of the work she did at the Eaton Corporation's Kearney, Nebraska facility. He told a local reporter how she loved taking him and his siblings to the plant to show them where she worked. "She provided so much for us," Beau Griffing said. "She wanted us to be able to be whatever we wanted to be," added his brother, Christopher Griffing, 20. Not quite five months ago, Kristine Griffing was working on a Bliss 150 ton shear press at the Eaton Corp plant, making valves and gears for the auto companies. Neither the press itself nor the…
To mark Sunshine Week, the annual initiative to promote freedom of information and government openness, I'm examining OSHA's performance in disclosing information about worker fatality cases. My interest in this particular transparency issue stems back to the first year of the Obama Administration, when in October 2009, a new feature appeared front-and-center on federal OSHA's homepage. It read: "Worker Fatalities." I gave OSHA's new leadership credit for reminding visitors to its website that workers are killed everyday on the job, many from preventable causes. The weekly postings by…
On July 27, 2011, just a few miles from my home in San Marcos, TX, Mr. Margarito Guardado Resinos, 34, and Mr. Nelson Pineda were working together to erect a pre-engineered steel building frame on property owned by Thermon Manufacturing. The workers were employed by Jetka Steel Erectors of Katy, TX, a firm hired by Bailey Elliot Construction of Austin, TX, to perform certain aspects of the project. Just before noon on July 27, 2011 the metal structure collapsed, killing Mr. Resinos and injurying Mr. Pineda. Federal OSHA safety officers investigated the fatal incident and issued citations…
Earlier this week, I reported on the death of Margarito Guardado Resinos, 34, at a construction project in my hometown of San Marcos, TX. Mr. Resinos employer, Jetka Steel Erectors, had been inspected by OSHA in December 2010, at a different construction site, and received citations in May 2011 for four serious violations of safety standards. I noticed however that the $12,000 penalty proposed by OSHA for the violations had been reduced to $6,100 through a settlement agreement with the company. Moreover, two of the four serious violations were reclassified with the label "other-than-…
Margarito Guardado Resinos, 34, and Nelson Pineda were working together to erect a pre-engineered steel building frame at a construction site in San Marcos, TX. The two were employed by Jetka Steel Erectors of Katy, TX, a firm hired by Bailey Elliot Construction of Austin to erect a new building for Thermon Manufacturing at the central Texas location. (I moved to San Marcos, TX last fall and the Thermon facility is on the service road for I-35, only a few miles from my home.) Just before noon on July 27, 2011 the metal structure collapsed, killing Mr. Resinos and injurying Mr. Pineda.…