A Maine contractor who was indicted on manslaughter charges after the death of an employee – his own half-brother – maintains that he is not culpable because his workers are not his employees and he cannot compel them to use fall protection. Shawn D. Purvis, owner of Purvis Home Improvement Co. in Saco, pleaded not guilty to the charges in April.
The sinking of a towboat in the Lower Mississippi River near New Orleans last March that killed two mariners is being blamed on the towboat company, in a new report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). A Marine Accident Brief issued by the agency said the company’s decision to ignore its own pre-employment hiring procedures led to an inadequately vetted pilot on board the Natalie Jean, a towing vessel on which he did not have previous experience.
A Napa Valley grape company is contesting the violations that OSHA issued to it after the death of a worker in a field in October 2018.
Following an investigation into the death of 49-year-old Leon Marcelo Lua, OSHA issued citations for five safety and health violations – three of them serious - against De Coninck Vineyards in American Canyon. Proposed penalties: $38,000.
New York City continued its string of construction industry fatalities on Saturday, when a 49-year-old worker fell 30 feet to his death at a Madison Avenue worksite.
The city’s Department of Buildings issued a full stop-work order for the site after the incident, which occurred shortly before noon.
A fall from the fourth floor of a building under construction claimed the life of a 24-year-old worker last month. News sources say Alexander J. Kanouse fell at approximately 8 a.m. while working at a jobsite in Madison. When first responders arrived, Kanouse was barely breathing and was bleeding profusely from a head wound.
The body of a third worker was recovered yesterday from the rubble of the Illinois silicone factory that exploded and erupted into flames late Friday. The search for the fourth body believed to still be in the debris that was the AB Specialty Silicones factory in Waukegan will resume today.
A 24-year-old worker was killed at work last week when hundreds of pounds of plate glass fell on him, crushing him.
News reports say Damarcus Laquan Calloway, an employee of Virginia Glass Products in Ridgeway, North Carolina, died April 22 from traumatic injuries.
Being fired for refusing to safety glasses was apparently what set in motion a deadly rampage at a suburban Chicago manufacturing facility in February. Before it was over, the company’s human resources manager who’d done the firing was dead, along with four other employees and the gunman. Six police offers were injured in the incident.
An employee at a Pennsylvania food processing plant was killed on the job Tuesday after falling into an industrial-size meat grinder machine.
Jill Greninger, 35, was reportedly standing on stairs next to the grinder when she "tragically either fell or was drawn into the machine resulting in her death," according to a statement by Lycoming County Coroner Charles Kiessling.
Four people were killed and four injured on Saturday when a crane collapsed and fell from a downtown Seattle building, crushing several vehicles. Two of the fatalities were crane operators; the others were occupants of cars.
The incident occurred at approximately 3:30 p.m., when the crane reportedly separated into two parts and fell.