Rotschy Fined $170K in Excavator Accident in Washington
By: Nick Morgan
Source: The Daily News, Longview, Wash. (TNS)
The company holding a $44 million Port of Longview construction contract was fined more than $170,000 by state regulators and will be placed on a “Severe Violators” list following its investigation into a Woodland job site in which a 1-1/2 ton piece of equipment reportedly crushed a construction worker.
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Rotschy Inc. of Vancouver was fined a total of $170,136 for a litany of violations—including ones classified as “willful serious,” “repeat serious,” and “serious”—stemming from the June 2 incident at a construction site for houses outside Woodland city limits in the 1700 block of Lewis River Road.
A trench worker had been giving hand signals to an excavator operator when the roughly 3,000 pound bucket arm fell off the arm of the excavator at about 8:30 a.m. the morning of June 3, according to a release issued Wednesday by the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries.
Rotschy’s safety record had been a point of scrutiny among union labor leaders since at least January of this year, when the Port of Longview voted 2-1 to select the non-union construction contractor for the port’s $44 million Industrial Rail Corridor Expansion Project, but the Woodland incident prompted the port to temporarily halt construction of its Industrial Rail Corridor Expansion Project earlier this summer before hiring an independent safety consultant and revisions to the port’s health and safety plan.
Safety latch missing from 13 other excavators
Investigators found that an important safety latch designed to prevent the excavator’s bucket from falling was missing. Upon later investigation, investigators found the safeguard was missing from 13 others across Rotschy’s fleet.
The involved excavator—as well as another one on the job site—was equipped with what’s known as a “quick coupler” designed to make it possible for operators to swap attachments without leaving the cab.
Craig Blackwood, assistant director for L&I’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, stated in the release that was highly unusual for the “vital safety latch” to be missing.
“These actions demonstrate a blatant disregard for the rules designed to keep workers safe,” Blackwood said. “This young man’s life will be forever impacted by this incident that was entirely preventable.”
The Woodland area incident separately prompted another investigation that culminated in a $13,770 fine in November, according to an earlier news report.
Following Wednesday’s citation, the state agency is also adding Rotschy to a severe violators list, and states that the company will be “subject to increased scrutiny by L&I.”
L&I states in the release that the company is appealing both fines linked to the incident.
When reached for comment, Doug Hiivala, director of occupational health and communications at Rotschy provided the following statement:
“Making sure our team and customers are safe on the job is the top focus for each of us at Rotschy, from our field teams to our company’s leaders. While we plan to appeal portions of the findings, we take the recent inspection seriously and follow a rigorous compliance process to review and address issues. Rotschy is taking meaningful steps to strengthen our safety practices this year, including increasing our safety team and daily jobsite monitoring process. We are committed to continuous improvement and to maintaining a strong safety culture.”
Worker was crushed twice
When the bucket fell off the excavator arm, it crushed the lower half of the worker’s body, according to L&I.
The equipment’s operator attempted to lift the bucket off of the worker using the detached arm, but the bucket slipped and it crushed the worker a second time.
The incident prompted a multi-agency rescue that lasted more than an hour and a half before Life Flight could airlift the worker to a nearby hospital, according to an earlier news report. The rescue reportedly involved Clark-Cowlitz Fire Rescue, the Vancouver Fire Department and Portland Fire & Rescue’s Technical Rescue Team, among others.
The man ultimately spent more than a month in the hospital being treated for severe injuries, according to L&I.
The new citations
The new L&I citation outlines two “willful serious” violations, two “repeat serious” violations and three “serious” violations.
One of the two “willful serious” violations show that Rotschy was fined $67,320 on findings that the excavator’s quick couplers were modified by the removal of the safety locks.
Another fine for $67,20 claims that workers were exposed to serious fall hazards when the company failed to provide a walkway for workers, and allowing employees to jump across a roughly 10-foot-deep trench.
One worker jumped across the trench as many as 20 times, according to the citation.
Another of the “repeat serious” violations claim that a “competent person” and a “top hand” on site were among individuals who were at risk of possible cave-in or other hazardous conditions during the incident where the worker was injured.
It describes circumstances such as a worker spending roughly 10 minutes “reaching outside of the trench box with his shoulders and head exposed” working to place grout around a pipe during the construction of a manhole.
Because the violation is a repeat—Rotschy was cited for the same violation at a job site in Vancouver on March 27—L&I assessed a penalty of $13,464.
According to the March 27 violation, one of the trench workers exposed to engulfment and fall hazards was a foreman, states an earlier news report.
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