Industrial Accidents

April 10, 2012

Hillsboro Blast Injures Ambulance Employee

The explosion of an oxygen tank as it was being filled left an employee of the Metro West Ambulance service in Hillsboro injured over the weekend, according to a report in The Oregonian. The newspaper quotes the victim’s father saying that the employee received first- and second-degree burns and is currently in intensive care.

According to the newspaper the victim, “a volunteer firefighter with the Scappoose Fire Department,” was on duty, but working alone when the accident took place. He “was filling oxygen tanks at the (ambulance) service’s headquarters… when a malfunctioning valve caused an explosion and fire,” the newspaper reports, citing a spokesperson for the ambulance company.

Though most of us would not think of an ambulance company as a potential site for an Oregon industrial accident this incident is a reminder that, in legal terms, industrial accidents can involve almost any sort of business.

April 6, 2012

Oregon Home Explosion Leaves More Questions then Answers

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The explosion of a mobile home in Damascus, Oregon has raised numerous questions, even as seven families struggle with its aftermath, according to The Oregonian. The newspaper reports that the families are currently being helped by the Red Cross.

Their homes were damaged after a nearby mobile home exploded for reasons that remain unclear. According to the newspaper “the blast damaged a water main that serves about 30 people who live in the mobile home development.” Investigators have ruled out a natural gas leak as the cause of the Oregon explosion, but have few answers beyond that.

“At this point, you can’t rule anything out,” a Clackamas Fire District spokesman told The Oregonian. “There are still all kinds of possibilities – and combinations of possibilities – so we don’t want to speculate.” What is certain is that the damage caused by this catastrophic accident will disrupt many lives for some time to come. The inside of the mobile home that exploded was unoccupied, but a man who was sitting on the unit’s porch was badly burned.

March 29, 2012

Industrial Accident Claims Raised by Crane Collapse Case

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A lengthy piece published this week in the New York Times tells the sad story of a 2008 industrial accident in Manhattan and the chain of events leading up to it. It is a story of corners cut and the fatal consequences that followed: of an American employer desperate to lower costs, a Chinese supplier making inflated claims for its products and due diligence that was never done.

The fatal accident involved a construction crane that collapsed at a building site on New York’s Upper West Side as a result of a faulty weld on the crane’s turntable. As the Times notes, there has been much testimony at the manslaughter trial of the crane’s owner “about the failed weld… and how the Chinese company was unable to satisfactorily perform a vital weld on the turntable. But little has been said about another aspect of the company: its description of itself was largely inflated or simply not true.”

As the newspaper goes on to report, the Chinese company, RTR Bearing Company Limited, claimed to have a 10-year history of high-end industrial work around the globe and to employ 109 people in two factories and a quality control center. In fact, the company was barely six months old when first contacted by the New York firm that eventually bought its crane, and appears to have been little more than a 3rd party marketer of other Chinese manufacturers’ goods. In an affidavit in a related civil suit, the company’s founder acknowledged that RTR actually employs only seven people, none of them engineers, and “has no factory and does no manufacturing,” the paper reports.

March 9, 2012

Portland Workplace Safety Issues Highlighted By Factory’s Poor Report Card

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The revelation by The Oregonian last week that Oregon’s Occupational Safety and Health Agency has levied over $26,000 in fines against Precision Castparts was a reminder of the importance of Oregon workplace safety, and of the need for both regulatory and legal vigilance as we all struggle to prevent Oregon industrial accidents.

According to the newspaper, the company was cited for “32 violations at its large parts campus in Milwaukie and Southeast Portland, raising significant safety concerns for the third time since 2008.” Citing an Oregon OSHA spokeswoman, the paper notes that some of the violations “were repeats.” The overall list of infractions focused mainly on “cleaning operations in the two plants.” The company manufacturers parts for airplane engines and industrial gas turbines. It also does work for the military.

It is good to read that none of the safety violations cited by OSHA were deemed to be “willful” on the company’s part – the most serious category. Still, the newspaper reports, “28 were serious, with nine having the potential to cause death.”

March 2, 2012

Oregon Industrial Accident Questions Surround Man’s Death on Barge

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division is investigating the circumstances of a fatal Oregon workplace industrial accident late last month involving a man who fell into a chemical holding tank aboard a barge on the Willamette River, according to local TV station KOIN.

According to The Oregonian, the Portland Fire Department’s hazmat rescue team was called to the barge near Swan Island after workers realized one of their colleagues was missing and that he had last been seen standing near an open hatch aboard what the newspaper describes as “a 40-feet-by-50-feet barge filled with a toxic and corrosive chemical liquid called lignin amine…. (which) is often used to spray fruit trees.”

When rescue crews arrived they found the hatch leading to one of the barge’s tanks open and the man’s body at the bottom, the newspaper reports. The Oregonian quotes a member of the Portland Fire & Rescue team describing the tank as a “double hazard,” noting both the extremely confined space inside the tank and the hazardous materials it contained. According to the paper, the atmosphere at the bottom of the tank contained only 1% oxygen, guaranteeing that the victim would have perished within minutes of falling in. While standard safety procedures would have required wearing a life vest, the paper says it is unclear whether the victim was doing so – though granted the lack of air inside the tank it is not likely that a vest would have saved him.

February 29, 2012

Washington Propane Explosion Raises Industrial Accident Concerns

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A serious Washington propane explosion last week injured five people and briefly placed a nearby school at risk, according to reporting by the Associated Press.

The Washington industrial accident took place near Mukilteo, in the Greater Seattle area. The news agency, citing a local fire district spokesperson, reported that “a 1,000 gallon tank was being loaded onto a truck to be taken to the construction site when it blew up.” Five people injured in the last were transported to a Seattle-area hospital. Students at a nearby elementary school were confined to their building for a time because of the possibility that debris might still be in the air.

As I have noted in earlier blogs, propane explosions are one of the most common types of industrial accidents in both Washington and Oregon. They are also one of the most readily preventable. Propane is an inherently unstable substance, but with proper procedures the dangers associated with it can be reduced significantly. The laws of Washington industrial accidents and Oregon industrial accidents are designed specifically to encourage people handling this and similar substances to exercise caution.

December 22, 2011

Oregon Train Accident Spotlights Safety Issues at Crossings

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A fatal accident earlier this month at an Eastern Oregon railroad crossing where collisions involving trains and vehicles have occurred in the past raises serious questions about corporate responsibility and road/rail safety.

According to Oregon Public Broadcasting (citing an article that originally appeared in the East Oregonian), a 63-year-old county worker died earlier this month “when a train struck a road grader on Canal Road south of Hermiston” in the Eastern part of the state. The worker was using the grader to spread gravel along one side of the tracks at the time of the accident. According to OPB “the train dragged the grader about 100 feet before it stopped.” The grader operator died at the scene of the Oregon train and car accident.

What makes this tragedy especially noteworthy are facts indicating it was ultimately preventable. As the article explains, at the crossing in question “motorists cannot see trains coming from the west until they emerge around a nearby curve. The crossing is uncontrolled, meaning it does not have traffic control arms.”

December 9, 2011

Wrongful Death Questions Raised by Citations Against Mining Company

by Matthew D. Kaplan

An Idaho mine operator says it plans to contest citations and fines totaling $1 million levied by the federal government in the wake of a miner’s death earlier this year, the Associated Press reports in an article reprinted in The Oregonian. The violations that led to the citations, in turn, raise wrongful death questions and are a reminder for us here in Oregon that mine operators and other employers in hazardous industries have, at all times, both a legal and a moral obligation to do everything they can to keep employees safe.

The 53-year-old victim, a 12-year veteran of the mine according to AP, died last April after a cave-in at the place where he and his brother were working, approximately one mile underground. The two “had just finished watering down blasted-out rock and ore in the mine in the Idaho Panhandle before the collapse,” the news agency writes.

The miner’s job involved “drilling holes in a rock face, blasting it to rubble, then carting the debris to the surface to be processed into silver, lead and zinc.”

June 29, 2011

Portland Industrial Accident Injures One

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Early reports that an Oregon industrial accident in North Portland left a worker critically injured have proven to be premature, according to The Oregonian. The newspaper, quoting an emergency services spokesman, reported that it was originally believed an explosion at SiC Processing had left a worker there with life-threatening injuries.

Several hours later it became clear that the victim was expected to make a “full and rapid recovery,” the paper reports.

The fact that the worker’s injuries were not as serious as was originally thought is a relief. But as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) investigates what the paper reports was a hydrogen blast a number of potential legal questions need to be considered.

May 29, 2011

But is this Deal Good for Everyone?

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A recent announcement that insurance giant Allstate is buying the Esurance and Answer Financial brands from the smaller, less well-known, White Mountains Insurance Group raises several troubling questions.

According to an Associated Press article, Allstate expects to pay about $1 billion for the two brands. The acquisition will allow Allstate to broaden the offerings available under its corporate umbrella. AP cites an Allstate press release claiming “the deal will help it tap consumers who prefer certain brands along with consumers who want choices among insurance carriers.”

Leaving aside the dubious claim that one company’s marketing of its products under different names actually constitutes “choice” from a consumer’s perspective, customers might also want to consider what a company really has in mind when it makes acquisitions like this at below-market-value. Notably, White Mountain told the AP that the sale “will increase its book value by $80 per share.” Yet in trading after the deal was announced White Mountain’s stock rose by only $51 (about 15%) – indicating that the market thinks White Mountain should have gotten more money from Allstate for the deal to raise the company’s valuation as much as the White Mountain claims.