Firm fined in death of man crushed at hospital work site
Twenty-two-year-old died after being crushed by reel of wire at site of future Santa Fe hospital
The state’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau has fined an Albuquerque firm for failing to properly secure heavy spools of wire at a work site where a young Santa Fe man was crushed to death in February.
The nearly 400-page report by the bureau outlines how Aiden McQuillan died, noting his employer, National Electric Supply, “failed to ensure that cable reels [spools] with weights exceeding 2,000 pounds were adequately secured during unloading of delivery trucks at the work site.”
The Feb. 8 incident occurred at the construction site of Presbyterian Healthcare Services’ new hospital on Santa Fe’s south side. McQuillan died shortly after arrival at Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center.
The reel of wire that struck and killed McQuillan “appears to have been not chocked and not restrained by a strap,” the report states, labeling the violation as “serious.”
It was unclear if broken pieces of a two-by-four board found under the reel that rolled off the truck and struck McQuillan were used as chocks or just for a cushion to prevent damage between the spools of wire, the report said. Some reels left on the truck were chocked to prevent sliding and some were not, according to the report.
National Electric has until Wednesday to pay the $3,000 penalty or to contest the citation. The company took interim corrective action as ordered by the Health and Safety Bureau “immediately following the accident,” Health and Safety Bureau Chief Bob Genoway said in an email.
According to the report, deliv-
ery drivers preferred using a forklift to unload the cable reels. Although one was available, it was not utilized when a reel of wire in excess of 2,600 pounds rolled off the delivery truck and pinned McQuillan, 22.
The forklift operator was inside the construction site and would have had to be located to unload with the forklift, the report said.
McQuillan, according to the report, picked up the flatbed delivery truck fitted with a hydraulic lift gate at the company’s Santa Fe warehouse and was unloading the circular reels of copper wire to the work site. Two men, including McQuillan, were starting to push the second reel off the lift gate “when the third reel began to roll to the end of the bed.”
When it reached the end and fell about four feet off the bed, it struck McQuillan, “crushing him against the second reel which was still on the lowered lift gate.”
Debra Adams, a former human resources manager at National Electric who said she was fired after the accident, alleged in the investigative report that employees were not adequately trained in safe unloading procedures.
“I just don’t believe that,” Adams said of the fine during a telephone interview. “That makes me so angry.”
In her statement to the Safety Bureau, Adams said four employees in Santa Fe and 12 in Albuquerque were only given forklift training.
“They were not given safety training in how to park the trucks, how to brace the product in the truck bed, when and where to release the straps that hold the product in place and how to unload safely,” she said in the statement.
The safety agency’s report also faults safety training procedures. “The company has no SOP’s (standard operating procedures) or drawings to direct the exact manner of chocking or tie down. New employees doing loading have no written procedures, but, instead, learn from more experienced employees.”
The Safety Bureau’s recommended National Electric Supply move “to a more quantified and formal” training method and that standardized chocks and how they are used with each large reel “should be stated and described in a drawing.” The company has agreed manual unloading will no longer be allowed.
Asked Friday if he intended to pay the penalty or contest it, National Electric Vice President Aaron Ingram responded, “I don’t know anything about that.”
Ingram said the McQuillan family “asked us to keep confidentiality” in explaining why he wouldn’t comment. When pressed on whether he had seen the Safety Bureau report, Ingram ended the interview and hung up.
By law, the maximum penalty for a “serious violation” is $12,675. Factors including the size of the business, the gravity of the violation, an employer’s good faith and violations history may be taken into account, Genoway said in an email.
The agency has established a base penalty for serious violations at $10,000. National Electric received a 70 percent reduction “in accordance with policy,” Genoway said, taking into account the size of business and history of violations.
“No reduction was given for good faith,” he said.
McQuillan had been employed by National Electric for about six weeks at the time of his death, his parents told The New Mexican in a February interview. He previously had been employed by the newspaper for two years and drove trucks and operated machines, his father Dennis McQuillan said.
Dennis McQuillan did not wish to comment to the media about the report, said a spokeswoman for the state Environment Department, where McQuillan is employed.