20.05.2008

Settlement reached in crushing accident

Although details have yet to be released, the Iowa Occupational Safety and Health Administration has reached a settlement with Minnesota-based Fagen Engineering, following the death of one of its employees at an ethanol plant in February.

56-year-old Kenneth Sterling died of injuries after he was crushed between the boom lift he was using and an overhead beam, while working on the construction of the Absolute Energy, ethanol plant near Lyle, Minnesota on February 10th.

According to an IOSH spokesperson, Fagen reached a settlement during an informal conference on May 14th. The company had been issued three citations and fined $15,000 on April 24th for failing to provide operator training, test the lower controls or install emergency safeguards for the aerial lift used by the employees.

The spokesperson said that violations may have contributed to the Sterling’s death.

Fagen had originally said that it would contest the citations. Full details of the settlement should be available later this week, when details will be published.

Vertikal comment

Details of this accident which happened within a closed plant were not issued at the time of the accident on February 12th. We now understand that Sterling, who had received little or no training, was driving a JLG boom lift in reverese when he struck an overhead beam crushng him agains the control panel.

It seems that the lift had been started without using the normal key, or the key had somehow been removed from the lower control panel. So that when colleagues tried to carry out a rescue using the lower controls they did not work.

As a result it was clear that the routine pre-use check had not been carried out, otherwise the fact that the lower controls were not functioning woudl have been discovered.

The good thing here is that the investigation drew a conclusion, and resutling action was taken quickly with details being released so that we can all learn from them.

The fine seems to be on the low side, although the negative publicity will certainly be a burden over th ecomng year or two.