Thursday, June 11, 2015

1 WORKER WORKING ON AN EQUIPMENT DEMOLITION JOB CRUSHED TO DEATH BY STEEL BEAMS





JUNE 10, 2015

Washington state officials are investigating after a 52-year-old Whatcom County man working with a friend on a demolition job was fatally crushed beneath a steel beam.

BLAINE, WASHINGTON

Washington state officials are investigating after a 52-year-old Whatcom County man working with a friend on a demolition job was fatally crushed beneath a steel beam.

The Bellingham Herald reports that James Loyd Bost was helping to scrap a cyclone air separator on Monday. The 30-foot-tall piece of machinery is an industrial-sized filter for dust and other small particles in the air. The newspaper says four steel beams formed a square to support it.

Police say two beams buckled under the separator and knocked the other two outward. One of the beams fell onto Bost. The county medical examiner says the man died at the scene from asphyxia.

State Department of Labor and Industries investigators are trying to determine what went wrong.