Category: News Reports|Worker Deaths

Three friends and co-workers were killed and two workers were injured at a roadway construction site on eastbound I-40 in Amarillo, Texas, on Saturday morning, June 10, 2017. A pick-up truck hauling a 16-foot flatbed trailer was traveling through the construction site when the trailer broke loose from the pickup and crashed into road paving equipment and the crew working with it.

The deceased workers are 63-year-old Julian Zamora,  59-year-old Ygnacio Rodriquez, and 36-year-old Jorge Noe Catano. They and the two injured workers are all J. Lee Milligan employees. One of the injured workers suffered life-threatening injuries, and the other was severely injured. The Amarillo Police Department said the scene on I-40 was located just east of Whitaker Road.

At approximately 9:05 a.m., the silver Ford pickup hauling construction materials such as sand and rebar was traveling eastbound on I-40 when the trailer became disconnected. The trailer careened into road construction lanes and then crashed into the road paving machine and the five workers. The trailer then went off-road and fell onto its side, which caused the sand load to hit a construction crew pickup truck that was parked beside the machinery, off the road.

The driver whose trailer broke off returned to the scene. He was not injured. The Austin Police Department traffic investigators questioned him. No charges have been filed in connection with this fatal workplace accident.

The Texas Department of Transportation contracted J. Lee Milligan to handle the hot-mix work in the Amarillo area. A statement from TxDOT officials asked for prayers for the families of the deceased and for those injured in this tragic accident.

The hitch hardware that fell off of the pickup truck, causing the trailer to break loose, was recovered by traffic investigators. Speed was not considered to be a factor.

–Guest Contributor

A 2005 explosion in Texas City, Texas, at a former BP refinery which killed 15 workers is one of the things on the minds of oil workers on strike across the nation. On February 1, workers walked off the job at nine American refinery and chemical plants, in the first nationwide strike since 1980. In a short time, the strike expanded to 11 refineries and 5,000 workers or more. Better benefits and wages and safer work conditions are the employees’ demands.

United Steelworkers represents the workers, and the union claims that oil companies maintain dangerously lean operations when oil prices are low. The companies supposedly overwork staff and hire non-union operators that lack experience. A representative for the union said workers are often forced into mandatory overtime. In situations where workers are fatigued and tired, they tend to make mistakes that can end up with someone getting hurt or killed.

The fatality rate among workers in oil and gas extraction is seven times worse than the combined death rate for all other industries in the U.S., according to a report by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) encompassing the years 2003-2010. The total number of oil and gas worker fatalities for that time period was 823.

Refineries are workplaces with great potential for numerous types of calamities. Employees work with such hazardous materials as flammable gases, noxious chemicals, and super-hot liquids.

The Texas City plant is one of two refineries among those on strike which has seen fatalities. It was found that the 2005 explosion was entirely preventable because there had been plenty of warning signs for potential disaster, but they were ignored. There were also fatalities in Washington state at a refinery; seven people died when a heat exchanger that was four decades old failed.

If the workers’ demands are met, at least one cause for preventable accidents will be ruled out as a threat in the workplace.

In this continuing series learn more about oil and gas extraction, which is associated with the most worker deaths. Specifically, learn about health risks associated with silica exposure during hydraulic fracturing.

–Guest Contributor

The following are more examples of fatal construction accidents that occurred in 2014:

• On May 30, 2014, a fatal construction zone accident occurred in Windsor, Connecticut. The 51-year-old victim was crushed between a trench box and a backhoe as he was working on a water line replacement project. The construction worker was pronounced dead after being transported to a nearby hospital. Caught-in and caught-between accidents are among the top four most deadly construction accidents today, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
• In late October, a backhoe operator died in what is considered a bizarre accident in Phoenix, Arizona. Other workers began searching for the man, and he was discovered dead, having become tangled up in the hydraulic arms on the machine. No one knows what happened or why the man became entangled, but the accident brings to light the uncertainty of potential construction hazards.
• In June, a 54-year-old construction worker was killed in New York City after a forklift fell on his chest. As in above-mentioned incident, the details of the fatal accident are unknown. The previous week, a 22-year-old was also killed by a forklift. In that accident, the man was trying to push the forklift up a ramp when it rolled back, crushing him.
• In Iowa last October, a 49-year-old construction worker was operating an earthmoving vehicle when the machine rolled over him, pinning him underneath. He died from the injuries.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of this three-part series for more examples of construction fatalities that occurred in 2014.

–Guest Contributor

In November in Point Comfort, Texas, a 42-year-old man was killed in an industrial accident. The accident occurred at a plant. According to a statement from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, the contract supervisor was killed after being struck by a door being installed on a tank using a crane.

Struck-by hazards are one of the many types of dangers that occur at construction jobs and in other workplace environments. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) provides the following statistics regarding “Causes of Construction Worker Crane-Related Deaths and Injuries” for the year 2008:

• 34% of the crane-related incidents were crane collapses, resulting in 25 fatalities and 59 injuries.
• 12% were overhead power line contacts, resulting in 10 workplace fatalities and 8 injuries.
• Another 12% involved workers being struck by a crane load, incidents which resulted in 6 deaths and 10 injuries.
• 10% were struck-by other crane parts and resulted in 6 deaths and 7 injuries.
• Other causes made up 20% of the crane incidents and resulted in 7 deaths and 16 injuries.

The following are struck-by accidents involving cranes that actually occurred in workplace environments:

• A bridge had been washed out in a flood, and four workers were involved in rebuilding the bridge when the cable on a crane boom broke. The boom fell on the men.
• A rigger was attaching a load to the block hook of a wheel-mounted crane, and a worker was assisting him. The crane operator was in the cab waiting for the signal to start the lift. At this point, the crane’s jib fell from the boom and struck the worker, who died at the scene. It was later discovered that the crane had not been inspected before being used and that the pin which was designed to secure the jib was missing.

–Guest Contributor