A federal agency says the June 2023 death of a 63-year-old construction worker at a jobsite in Brockton, Massachusetts, could have been prevented had the contractor followed safety regulations.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has proposed penalties of $142,642 for LMA Services Company LLC of Stoughton for exposing employees to struck-by and caught between hazards as they worked near a skid steer doing excavation work for a new structure at Brockton Hospital.
A second citation was issued for failure to provide the requested OSHA logs within the required time.
According to reports of the incident, at 12:06 p.m. June 13, Brockton Police received a 911 call for a report of a male employee who was trapped underneath a Bobcat skid-steer loader at a construction site at Signature Healthcare Brockton Hospital.
Upon arrival, emergency workers found Roger Porter, an employee of LMA Services from East Sandwich, in an 8-foot-deep foundation trench trapped beneath the loader, which had fallen onto him.
Porter and the operator of the skid steer were leveling out the gravel in the trench when the incident occurred.
Authorities said extricating Porter from the scene was labor-intensive for the first responders. Upon removal, he was pronounced dead at the scene.
