Coroner: Employee died within seconds in Strong Spas accident
POINT TOWNSHIP — A Shamokin Dam man died within seconds after a 1,200-pound metal spa mold fell on him Wednesday morning, according to Northumberland County Coroner James F. Kelley.
Kelley said Anthony Parsons, 20, of Shamokin Dam, died of blunt force trauma to the chest after being entrapped in the mold while he was working at Strong Spas, located along Route 11. "Cause of death was listed as blunt force trauma to the chest due to entrapment in a spa metal mold.”
Kelley said an autopsy performed Thursday by Dr. Samuel Land, of Forensic Pathology Associates, Allentown, showed Parsons had significant internal injuries. He had been pronounced dead at 8:50 a.m. Wednesday after what Kelley described as a work accident.
Family, friends and coworkers expressed shock at Parsons’ death on his Facebook page. His uncle is raising money to help defray funeral expenses on www.gofundme.com.
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Swimming Pool Manufacturing Worker Killed After Being Trapped Under 1,200-Pound Mold
April 27, 2017 8:09 PM
NORTHUMBERLAND, Pa. (CBS/AP) — A new employee at a Pennsylvania swimming pool manufacturing company has been killed after he was trapped under a 1,200-pound mold.
The (Sunbury) Daily Item reports the Northumberland County coroner planned an autopsy Thursday on the 20-year-old worker, whose name wasn’t immediately released.
The man was killed Wednesday about 7:30 a.m. at Strong Industries Pool and Spas in Point Township. That’s about 55 miles north of Harrisburg.
Wade Spicer, the company’s owner, says the death is the first at the company since it opened in 1992.
“We did everything we could do to try to save him,” Spicer told The Daily Item.
Spicer added to The Daily Item he “had no idea why the employee was caught under the mold. He should not have run into the mold. There was nothing wrong with the equipment, there was no machine error.”
Spicer says he’s reviewed security video of the incident and says the worker leaned into the mold and may have done so after dropping something, possibly his cellphone. Spicer says the worker was wearing ear buds and might not have heard any warnings.
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UPDATE: Fatal industrial accident victim had worked for a month
By Rick Dandes The Daily Item
Apr 26, 2017 Updated Apr 26, 2017
This story was updated at 5:12 p.m. April 26.
POINT TOWNSHIP — A 20 year-old employee at Strong Industries Pool and Spas died Wednesday morning after he was crushed underneath a 1,200-pound mold.
Northumberland County Coroner James F. Kelley confirmed the death Wednesday morning.
"The accident happened at 7:31 a.m.," said Wade Spicer, owner, Strong Industries. "We did everything we could do to try to save him."
It was the first work-related death at Strong Industries since it opened in 1992, Spicer said.
Point Township Police Chief Joshua VanKirk responded to the accident. Kelley was called to the scene and pronounced the man dead at 8:50 a.m.
Kelley has not yet released the victim's identity. "His parents, who are from Alabama, wish to inform additional relatives."
The employee had only been working at Strong Industries for a month, Spicer said.
"The 'nature of his death' is that it is 'work-force related'," Kelley said in an email Wednesday. "Therefore, I believe an autopsy is warranted."
The autopsy will be conducted today, at Lehigh Valley Hospital, Kelley said.
Spicer said he "had no idea why the employee was caught under the mold. He should not have run into the mold. There was nothing wrong with the equipment, there was no machine error."
Spicer, and others, looked at a video of the accident, he said. "He leaned into the mold. It was being lowered. Maybe he dropped something, perhaps a cellphone, I'm not sure."
The employee was wearing ear buds, and might not have heard any last-second warnings, Spicer said, shaking his head. "He might have been listening to music. I just can't say.
"This is a very sad day," Spicer said.
Friends of the employee who lost his life have started a Go Fund Me campaign to pay for funeral expenses. Their goal is to raise $1,000, the Go Fund Me page reads.
Relatives and friends have been expressing their feelings on the employee's personal Facebook page as well.When the family agrees to release the name of the deceased, the Daily Item will have more information
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An employee was crushed to death by a heavy mold at a spa and pool factory in Pennsylvania Wednesday morning.
The 20-year-old worker came into contact with a 1,200-pound pool mold that quickly crushed him underneath it. The employee worked at Strong Industries Pool and Spas for just a month, owner Wade Spicer told the Daily Item. A camera caught the incident on video.
“He leaned into the mold. It was being lowered,” Spicer elaborated. “Maybe he dropped something, perhaps a cell phone, I’m not sure.” Spicer said the employee wore earbuds at the time of the accident. He also mentioned Strong Spas has never had a workplace death.
Coming into contact with dangerous objects is the third-highest contributor to workplace fatalities in America. Properly training and maintaining policies designed to guarantee the safety of your workers are some of the ways you can avoid accidents in the workplace, according to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Proactive prevention programs are highly effective at reducing injury or death.
Workers’ Comp Covers Your Injuries
Workers injured on the job are almost universally covered by an insurance policy called “workers’ compensation” carried by your employer. Pennsylvania’s laws are particularly strict, requiring employers to carry workers’ compensation even if they employ just one individual.
However, plans come from a variety of sources. Pennsylvania employers can purchase coverage from an insurance agent or broker, apply for coverage from a private-sector carrier with a workers’ comp policy, utilize the State Workers’ Insurance Fund, or insure themselves. These options differ state to state, and each state and option may have different procedures.
Workers’ compensation claims generally require an “independent medical examination” conducted by doctors who work with insurance companies. These IMEs can limit the company’s liability and decrease your chances for a reasonable payout, a common practice for workers’ compensation insurers.
Receiving compensation for an injury on the job can be difficult without the assistance of an attorney. You can seek workers’ compensation for many injuries, ranging from serious injuries like broken bones to more common injuries like hearing loss or tendonitis. Employees can also bring claims against third parties like manufacturers or contractors if they believe their injuries are due to the negligence of another company.
In severe circumstances, your loved one may have died because of injuries sustained on the job. You can seek help investigating an accident leading to a workplace fatality and the potential for employer negligence at the facility. Workplace accidents are a common instance leading to wrongful death lawsuits.
As for the accident at Strong Spas, the coroner conducted an autopsy at Lehigh Valley Hospital but hasn’t released the results yet. Friends of the employee set up a GoFundMe page for funeral expenses.
Truck driver blames asthma attack for crash in New Castle, Del.
A tractor trailer plowed into a business in New Castle, Delaware on Thursday. (WPVI)
Thursday, April 27, 2017 06:22PM
NEW CASTLE, Del. (WPVI) -- A tractor trailer plowed into a business in New Castle, Delaware on Thursday.
It happened around 12:25 p.m. in the Twins Landing Industrial Park at 600 Ships Landing Way.
The driver said he suffered an asthma attack while trying to park and lost control of the truck.
The big rig went through the wall and came to rest partially inside the business.
He refused medical treatment.
No injuries were reported.
Crews work to stabilize a sinkhole and clear out nearby hazards after heavy rains in December 2015. The City shared this photo with The Review in March 2016, before an Oak Creek homeowner filed a lawsuit over the repairs. (LO Engineering Department via Portland Tribune)
LAKE OSWEGO, Ore. (THE REVIEW) — An Oak Creek neighborhood resident has filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Lake Oswego, seeking compensation for alleged property damage caused by an extensive project last year to shore up a failing stormwater pipe.
Rob Amsberry, a City stormwater engineer, and Emery & Sons Construction Inc. are also named as defendants in the federal lawsuit, which was filed April 19 in U.S. District Court in Portland.
Lola Amacher’s lawsuit claims that when contractors acting on behalf of the City restored the landscaping and irrigation system in her backyard after completing repairs to a nearby stormwater pipe, they installed a new irrigation system that uses more water than before and leaks water into the ground even when shut off.
As a result, the lawsuit says, Amacher has been hit with higher water bills and her basement has repeatedly flooded in the months since the project was completed. The lawsuit also claims that the City did not offer fair compensation for the intrusion onto Amacher’s property while the repair work was being done on the pipe.
Additionally, the lawsuit claims that the City denied a personal injury claim filed by Amacher after she allegedly fell and was injured due to the “uneven and unstable condition” on her property during the project.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified financial compensation and punitive damages from the City. It also seeks compensation for attorney fees and asks that the City be rquired to repair the irrigation system by identifying and stopping the source of the leak.
City Engineer Erica Rooney told The Review last week that the City was aware of the lawsuit, but she declined to comment further.
The municipal stormwater line in question runs underneath a Westlake property located directly south of Amacher’s home. The underground pipe is adjacent to the fence that divides the two properties’ backyards. (The dividing line between the properties also aligns with the dividing line between the Westlake and Oak Creek neighborhoods.)
In the middle of an exceptionally rainy winter season in late 2015, a large sinkhole opened up along the back edge of the property belonging to Amacher’s neighbor, swallowing part of both backyards along with the fence that divided them and threatening to destabilize several nearby trees.
Amacher’s lawsuit states that the sinkhole opened “on or around” Nov. 15, 2015, although City officials told The Review last year that the owners of the Westlake property reported the sinkhole on Dec. 10. City staff examined the sinkhole and determined that it had been triggered by a partial collapse of the aging aluminum stormwater pipe.
“The straw that broke the camel’s back was the high flows we had in there,” Amsberry told The Review in March 2016. “I think what happened is the bottom was corroded away and the water scoured out the soils underneath it so it didn’t have any support, so it started folding in on itself, and then it started taking all the soil with it once it finally collapsed.”
As an emergency solution, the City enlisted Emory & Sons Construction to stabilize the hole, install a temporary replacement pipe and remove the affected trees. The contractor had the necessary supplies on hand because of work being done on the Lake Oswego-Tigard Water Partnership at the time, but only for a temporary fix.
The collapsed pipe segment was part of a 350-foot length of pipe that ran under several adjacent properties, Amsberry told The Review last year, and an inspection revealed that the rest of the pipe was in equally bad shape and could collapse in the same way at any time.
Rather than digging a trench through several additional backyards, the City opted to line the inside of the pipe with a stronger HDPE plastic pipe, which could be pushed through piece by piece from an access point at the stabilized sinkhole. The new pipe was installed in early March 2016, and contractors then refilled the hole and restored the yards.
According to Amacher’s lawsuit, Amsberry offered Amacher $6,800 on behalf of the City in May 2016 as compensation for the use and occupation of her property during the project. Amacher declined, the lawsuit states, because the project was still ongoing at the time and she felt that she could not gauge the full extent of its impact on her property. The offer expired on Aug. 8, 2016, the lawsuit says, and Amacher was subsequently told it was no longer available.
The Review sought clarification last week about the City’s compensation policy and how it would apply in this case, but Rooney declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation.
The lawsuit states that Amacher noticed the higher water usage by her new irrigation system during the project and notified the City, and that she continued to ask about it after the work was finished. The lawsuit states that the City made additional visits to try to solve the problem, but the high water bills continued.
In January 2017, the lawsuit states, Amacher found that her basement had flooded and that the water appeared to be coming from her backyard. The lawsuit states that her basement had never flooded during her prior 10 years living on the property, and that she had to install a sump pump and drainage system to prevent further flooding,
The lawsuit was filed by attorneys Neil Olsen and Brian Best of the Lake Oswego law firm Rathbone Barton Olsen PC. Last week, Best declined to comment for this story.
Crane operator escapes injury after heavy machine tips over near LRT tunnel
A crane operator escaped injury Wednesday when he leaped from his heavy machine as it tipped over while lifting a small cement mixer into a hole at the eastern portal of the Confederation LRT Line tunnel near Laurier Avenue and Waller Street.
Rideau Transit Group technical director Peter Lauch said the crane operator was “shaken” but unhurt in the incident, which occurred around 9:30 a.m.
Once the load was on, treads on the crawler crane were to extend to create a square and centre the load to prevent tipping. “Those treads weren’t deployed and that caused an unbalance and therefore we tipped forward,” Lauch told reporters at the scene.
He was unable to say what the cement mixer weighs or the extent of damage to the crane or mixer.
Workers had discussed safety and load capacity beforehand and ensured no one was underneath the empty mixer as it was being lowered, Lauch said.
The Ministry of Labour is investigating. No one from the ministry was available for immediate comment on the incident.
Ottawa and District Labour Council president Sean McKenny said there’s something “amiss” in the LRT tunnel project.
“This is kind of hard to hide,” he said, the toppled crane over his shoulder.
“Clearly our community is seeing that’s something’s amiss in the tunnel.”
McKenny said tunnel workers don’t expect carpeted floors or massages, but they do want safe working conditions. “After this, you can be assured there’s a few more of those workers that are reluctant to go into the tunnel for fear they could be injured,” he said.
McKenny said the contractor forces workers to sign confidentiality agreements, which, in part, prevent them from speaking to the media about the concerns. “Anything that does happen in the tunnel stays in the tunnel.”
McKenny said he will be meeting with LRT officials and transit boss John Manconi Thursday morning and will raise this.
Lauch and Manconi both defended RTG’s safety record.
“It’s a big job site, it’s a tough place to work at times, but having said that, we stand by our safety record,” Lauch said.
All workers in Ontario are protected by provincial health and safety rules and regulations, Manconi said. “They have the right to refuse work, they have the right to report their injuries and they have obligations also.”
The $2.1-billion Confederation Line is to be completed next year. Manconi denied suggestions RTG might be pressuring workers to rush in order to meet that deadline.
“We are not going to compromise safety to meet a deadline,” he said.
Watson was told at council that a vehicle with a crane attached tipped over, but he had not heard why it happened.
“The Ministry of Labour will be on the scene along with RTG to examine what exactly happened,” Watson said at city hall after a council meeting. “We’re very pleased the protocols were followed, no one is hurt and we’ll wait to hear from the Ministry of Labour.”
“Any time there’s any incident, it raises concerns, but this is a massive project, it’s $2.1 billion, and we have one of the safest records on safety in the entire province for a project this size,” Watson said.
The incident is the latest issue to face workers who are busily trying to keep the LRT project on track. Several complaints have been made by workers on the project in recent months about the tight quarters underground, poor sanitation and issues with debris littering the work site underground.
MENLO PARK (CBS SF) – Two iron workers at the construction site of a new Facebook building in Menlo Park were injured Wednesday after part of the building collapsed, causing them to fall, fire officials said.
According to Menlo Park Fire Protection District officials, at 5:21 p.m. fire crews responded to Facebook’s new building 21, which is currently under construction.
At the scene, fire crews were escorted by other construction workers to the two injured men.
According to workers who witnessed the incident, both victims were assembling steel framing about 40 feet above ground when a steel beam they were standing on and attached to dropped about 20 feet.
The beam caught on a lower floor assembly and catapulted the two men toward the ground. Their safety harnesses and rigging broke and stopped their descent before hitting the ground below, fire officials said.
According to fire officials, one victim is in his late 20s and the other is in his early 30s. Both men were conscious after the fall and complained of significant pain to their lower extremities, as well as puncture wounds.
Both men were treated at the scene, then transported to Stanford Hospital and Trauma Center.
In a statement, Menlo Park fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman said, “Fortunately, the iron workers were wearing their safety harnesses and rigging, which probably helped save their lives along with, as we understand it, the fact that the beam they were attached to caught on a lower floor assembly, miraculously insuring their survival.”
A number of steel upright and cross beams were damaged in the collapse, according to fire officials. The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health will be conducting an investigation of the collapse
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2 workers hurt in construction accident at new Facebook building
Two iron workers are recovering this morning after a scary accident at a Facebook construction site. (Menlo Park Fire Protection District)
By Matt Keller
Updated 1 hr 53 mins ago
MENLO PARK, Calif. (KGO) -- Two iron workers are recovering this morning after a scary accident at a Facebook construction site.
A beam suffered what's being called a "catastrophic failure." Workers at the site said the two men were working 40-feet high on Facebook's new Building 21 just before 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. They were putting together the steel framing when that beam dropped about 20 feet, catching on to other parts of the construction, catapulting them towards the ground. Firefighters say their safety harnesses and rigging stopped their fall, before they hit the ground.
Both men, one in his late 20's and the other in his early 30's, Were taken to the hospital with puncture wounds and also pain in their lower bodies. The fire chief says it was miraculous they survived.
CAL OSHA has started their investigation and says there were no previous incidents at this site. They have up to six months to decide if they want to issue a citation for this incident.
