The investigation is continuing into a weekend workplace death at Erie\u2019s Donjon shipbuilding and repair.<\/p>\n
As Erie News Now first reported, it happened on board a 1,000 foot cargo freighter that\u2019s been docked in Erie all winter for repairs.<\/p>\n
The office of the Erie County coroner, and OSHA — the Occupational Safety and Health Administration are both investigating. According to Erie County Coroner Lyell Cook, the victim, 44-year-old Alfredo Arias, fell about 55 feet into a forward cargo hold of the freighter \u201cAmerican Integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n
An autopsy performed at the county morgue on Monday confirmed Coroner Cook\u2019s initial finding that the worker suffered multiple blunt force trauma in the fall. The autopsy ruled out any medical issues, such as a heart attack or stroke. The coroner said that Arias was not wearing a safety harness when he fell just before 5 a.m. Saturday.<\/p>\n
Coroner Cook ruled the death accidental, but said he will wait for toxicology test results before ruling on the cause of death.<\/p>\n
Erie Lucero, Regional Director for the Office of Public Affairs East at the U.S. Department of Labor confirmed that an OSHA investigation into the death at Donjon is underway, but he declined to comment on any specifics of the case.<\/p>\n
A former Donjon employee, who declined to talk on camera, expressed concern about the accident. He wondered why the employee was not \u201charnessed in,\u201d if there was any cabling installed around the perimeter of the hold, and if the employee knew that the hatch cover had been removed. Those are all answers he hopes come out in the investigation.<\/p>\n
Erie News Now reached out to Donjon officials for a comment or statement on the incident. So far, they have not responded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The investigation is continuing into a weekend workplace death at Erie\u2019s Donjon shipbuilding and repair. As Erie News…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[41305,19415,77178,77177,136,5130,138,137,77180,19811,77179,77176],"class_list":{"0":"post-172026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-accidental-death","9":"tag-autopsy","10":"tag-cargo-freighter","11":"tag-donjon-shipbuilding","12":"tag-erie","13":"tag-erie-county-coroner","14":"tag-erie-headlines","15":"tag-erie-news","16":"tag-occupational-safety-and-health-administration","17":"tag-osha","18":"tag-safety-harness","19":"tag-workplace-death"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}