Electrocuted at Age 22

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/05/03/electrocuted-at-age-22/

by Tula Connell, May 3, 2008

This is a cross-post from the firedoglake blog.

Every day, most of us go to work and then come home. Next day: Rinse, repeat.

But some U.S. workers go to work and never come home.

In April 2005, Donald Wilcher Smith was one of them. The 22-year-old central Texas man was electrocuted at the Sanderson Farms processing plant.

This week, his father, Donald Coit Smith, described what it’s like to lose his son.

I do not possess the capacity to adequately describe the horror that possesses my soul from my son’s death. To lose him caused me to reflect on faith in my God.

He testified Tuesday before a U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in a hearing on “When a Worker is Killed: Do OSHA Penalties Enhance Workplace Safety?”



Smith, a workplace inspector for a polyurethane manufacturer who worked regularly with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), said his encounters with OSHA as an employer were far different from his dealings with them as a parent.

I have been met with resistance at virtually every corner I’ve had to turn. It started with the inspection of the death facility and getting information on the why and how of my son’s death. I’m not talking about the fact that he was electrocuted…that was obvious. But how could this have happened? And why weren’t the events that led up to his death avoided? In my study of the situation from the information I’ve obtained, the root problems that surfaced were really simple and stood out….There was no commitment. There was no deterrent.

Earlier this week, we commemorated Workers Memorial Day, as we have since 1989. April 28 was chosen because it is the anniversary of OSHA. Every year, people in hundreds of communities and at worksites recognize workers who have been killed or injured on the job. Trade unionists around the world now mark April 28 as an International Day of Mourning.

FULL story at link.