Oregon Injury Lawyer Blog
The death of a Forest Grove resident in an Oregon explosion near Gaston raises critical safety issues. According to television station KGW, the blast at the Stimson Lumber Company also injured at least two other workers. The incident may fit Oregon’s definition of an industrial accident, depending on what investigators determine to be its precise details.
The station, quoting local fire department officials, reports that the accident took place when “a six-foot-tall hydraulic accumulator machine exploded… as three workers were trying to dismantle it.” The incident also led to other parts of the mill complex being evacuated, KGW notes, “as a safety precaution.” State OSHA officials were reportedly on-site to begin their investigation shortly after the accident occurred.
Complex incidents like this one may fit the definition of an Oregon industrial accident if the equipment involved can be shown to have been defective or if the suggested procedures for operating it offered inadequate safety protections. Oregon explosions and similar industrial accidents often require specialized legal knowledge to litigate, because of the complex – often overlapping – layers of accountability on and off the job site that need to be examined as part of any court proceeding.
An Oregon industrial accident attorney can help loved ones and survivors make their way through this legal thicket, undertaking the often-complex task of carefully examining all of a case’s particulars in an effort to determine the parameters of a genuinely just settlement.
Any time a worker dies on the job the state of Oregon, acting on behalf of all of us as Oregonians, must look carefully at the circumstances involved in an effort to protect workers and other citizens, and to prevent similar tragic deaths in the future. Oregon and Washington industrial accident lawyers are part of this system, helping ensure that irresponsible or negligent companies take responsibility for their actions.
The Oregonian: Three injured after explosion at Stimson Lumber in Gaston
