Updated at 8:24 p.m.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
Guards were missing from a conveyor and lockout procedures were lacking at Hampton Mill in Morton when a 20-year-old worker died after his clothing got caught in a machine and around his neck last December, a state agency has found.
Dillan Davis, 20, of Randle, was killed on Dec. 13 at the east end sawmill.
The state Department of Labor and Industries last week fined Hampton $11,200 for three serious violations.
The mill is owned by Portland, Ore.-based Hampton Affiliates.
Davis had been working since the year before at the Hampton mill in Randle, and transferred to the Morton facility several weeks before he was found on a conveyor fatally injured.
The citation issued last Wednesday stated the employer did not ensure guards were provided at all points along the conveyor where workers might be injured by “nip” points.
In particular, there was no guard where a tensioner roll had been installed on the block chipper conveyor belt where Davis was killed, according to a spokesperson for Labor and Industries.
A second serious violation in a different location was a 24-inch drive sprocket which was only partially safeguarded leaving a roughly 10-inch gap where a person could get caught, according to the citation.
Further, the plant manager and other employees including the human resource manager all stated they didn’t use supplemental information tags when locking out equipment, according to spokesperson Elaine Fischer.
Fischer said that when a piece of equipment is shut down for example while someone is making repairs or cleaning it, both a lock preventing it from inadvertently getting turned on and a tag are required.
The tag issue was a general violation, of lesser significance than a serious violation, according to Fischer.
However, the third serious violation was Hampton did not have written, equipment-specific lockout procedures for all machines in the mill.
The safety inspection prompted by the death also found the employee-elected members of the plant safety committee were serving two years instead of only one year as required, which could cause them to become complacent to safety issues. There was no penalty associated with that general violation.
The mill has until July 24 to correct the tagging issue. The other items were all corrected during the inspection process.
Hampton has 15 business days to either pay the fines or appeal, according to Fischer.
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For background read “News brief: Clothing caught in a machine killed saw mill worker” from Friday December 16, 2011, here
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter
George is right, but . . . I have seen pictures of this poor kid. His family must be devastated. I know he was over 18 and technically an adult, but if you saw his photo you will realize he was just a boy. I don’t get why someone couldn’t cut the clothing off fast enough to save him, although I am sure that if this were possible, it would have been done. Can you imagine the horror of being there and not being able to save him? I have a son that is just a few years older than Dillan was. It would haunt me forever. It’s a terrible, terrible tragedy all the way around.
Lisarae, those fines were just from safety violations. The corrections that have been made, and the ones that will hopefully be made will help prevent other injuries or fatalities in the future… but once again, in an industrial setting, ALL workers must be aware of their surroundings. MY safety is MY responsibility…
That being said, these fines are just from L&I… the company could still be taken to court for civil penalties in the death of the worker…
WTF????? 11K? There is a dead CHILD here, due to pure and simple negligence!! Grrrrrr……………..