an, 25, killed while working 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
http://www.heraldsun.com/orange/10-191547.html
an, 25, killed while working on dump truck
By BETH VELLIQUETTE, The Herald-Sun
February 5, 2002
8:48 pm
CARRBORO -- An Orange County man died Tuesday morning after a dump truck bed came down on him as he was doing maintenance work on the truck.
Jeremy James Hendricks, 25, who lived at Lot 7 at Monty Johnson?s mobile home park on Old Greensboro Highway, died at the residence of Monty Johnson at 2304 Ivy Road, which runs off of Old Greensboro Highway west of Carrboro.
Paramedics rushed to the rural residence after receiving a 911 call at about 11:30 a.m., but by the time they arrived, Hendricks already had died. Orange County Sheriff?s Office investigators then drove to the scene to investigate the accident.
The accident occurred in the back yard behind Johnson?s brown wood-frame home, where he kept several trucks and other equipment.
"He was working on a hydraulic line on the dump truck, and the bed was up," Investigator Randy Hawkins said.
The old Chevrolet dump truck, believed to have been made in the 1960s, had a slow leak in the hydraulic system that raises the dump truck bed, and Hendricks was attempting to fix it, Hawkins said. Johnson told Hendricks to go up under the truck to work on the hydraulic line, but instead, Hendricks began to fix it by leaning over the frame of the truck, Hawkins said.
Johnson walked into his shop to do something, and when he turned to come out, he heard a pop and saw that the truck bed had started to descend.
"When the line came loose, it just started coming down," Hawkins said. "Most people would think it would fall, but he said it was coming down slow."
Johnson yelled for Hendricks to get out, but it appeared to Johnson that maybe Hendricks was trying to quickly reconnect the hydraulic line to stop the bed from coming down, Hawkins said.
"He said he had plenty of time to get out," Hawkins said. "Mr. Johnson was yelling at him to get out."
Johnson grabbed a 4-by-4 piece of lumber and jammed it between the frame and the dump bed, but the bed came down on Hendricks, crushing him across the shoulder region.
Hendricks was single, Orange County Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass said.
It appeared that Hendricks was working for Johnson at his home, but the N.C. Occupational Safety and Health Division had not received a report by 5 p.m. that Hendricks had been killed. When someone is killed in a work-related
accident, the division conducts an initial investigation to determine whether it falls under its authority.
"He has to be hired to do the job rather than just assisting or helping out," said Daniel Clark, who runs the complaint desk for safety compliance for the division.
The division will conduct its investigation to determine whether the employer violated safety regulations, Clark said. Normally, an investigation takes about a month to complete, Clark said.
An insurance company might also do an investigation to determine liability, Clark said.
An employer must report a fatal accident to the N.C. Occupational Safety and Health Division within eight hours of the accident.
URL for this article: http://www.heraldsun.com/orange/10-191547.html
© Copyright 2002. All rights reserved. All material on heraldsun.com is copyrighted by The Durham Herald Company and may not be reproduced or redistributed in any medium except as provided in the site's Terms of Use.
Submitted on 02/06/02
Submitted by:
Bill Waddell
Reference:
The Herald-Sun, Feb 5, 2002
Copyright © 2002 DarwinAwards.com
|
