Unfortunately, there seems to be an endless number of ways to die on the job. None of them are pretty.
This particular case caused the man’s family a great deal of grief and anguish, as he was only 21 years old at the time of the incident. He went to work in the morning, thinking about what needed to be done at work. The man’s workplace was at a wood products company.
That fateful day, the young man had been assigned to an auger on the east side of the company’s building and was responsible for grinding up scrap chunks of wood and feeding them into an incinerator. No one knows what happened, as he was working alone, but something got stuck in the auger. The man went to free it up and his clothing got caught in the whirling blades. He died as a result of being mauled by the auger.
His co-workers found him 10 minutes later after they went into the office to get a drink of water. The OHSA inspectors were dispatched to the scene and an investigation was undertaken to find out a number of things, not the least of which is why the young man was working alone with dangerous machinery. They will likely also look into the possibility of the auger being defective.
No one could have guessed that this man would be dead before the end of the day. No one saw the accident coming, but they may have had an inkling something would go wrong if someone had been working with him. A more experienced worker could have stopped him from reaching into a moving auger. The deceased’s family would want legal advice from an Austin personal injury attorney about their rights, about filing a wrongful death lawsuit, about what to expect during the course of a trial and what to expect in terms of damages.
In discussions with a Austin personal injury attorney, the family would want to know what part negligence may have played in the death of their son. The answer may well lie in the fact that he was allowed to work alone with a dangerous piece of equipment. If he had little or no experience operating an auger and the company was aware of that, the jury may find that assigning him to that job and allowing him to work alone was negligent.
Robert W. Lee is an Austin personal injury lawyer for The Lee Law Firm. If you need an Austin personal injury lawyer, contact an Austin personal injury attorney from The Lee Law Firm. Visit RWLeelaw.com.
