Gabriel Benitez. (Source: Facebook)
Worker dies after being run over by large dump truck at ASARCO Mine in Sahuarita
Friday, July 28th 2017
TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) -
A worker died Thursday night at the ASARCO Mine in Sahuarita when the vehicle he was in was run over by a large dump truck, officials said.
The Pima County Sheriff's Department confirmed Gabriel Benitez, 41, died at the scene.
"It appears Benitez was sitting in his work truck, a Ford F550, when he was ran over by a large mining dump truck that had just finished dropping its load," PCSD spokesman Cody Gress said in a news release."
Gress said there were no signs of impairment from the other driver.
ASARCO issued this statement:
"Work-related injuries are felt deeply in ASARCO’s company and community, and our thoughts and prayers go out to his family, friends, and co-workers.”
The haul trucks carry the ore out of the pit along a haulage road with a slope of no more than about nine percent. They dump the ore into a gyratory crusher which reduces the ore to eight inches or less — about the size of soccer balls.
ASARCO was organized in 1899 as American Smelting And Refining COmpany. Originally a consolidation of a number of lead-silver smelting companies, the Company has evolved over the years into an integrated producer of copper, and other metals.
The Company is a fully integrated miner, smelter and refiner of copper in the United States. ASARCO’s domestic mines annually produce approximately 350 – 400 million pounds of copper. Significant copper mines include the Mission, Silver Bell and the Ray open-pit mines, all three in Arizona.
ASARCO has solvent extraction/electrowinning product at our Ray and Silver Bell mines. ASARCO operates a copper smelter in Hayden, Arizona, which produces almost half a billion pounds of anodes annually. The Company’s Amarillo Copper Refinery in Texas and the SX/EW plants at the Ray and Silver Bell mines produce about 375 million pounds of refined copper per year.