A worker with the colorful name of Nicky Outlaw, a 42-year-old heavy equipment operator from Fyffe, Ala., died earlier this week in an accident on the Guadalupe River flood cleanup in Texas.
Outlaw was operating a bucket loader, and reportedly had stepped from the vehicle when the accident occurred. OSHA is investigating.
Sheriff's Deputy James Maher was patrolling near the site and reached the scene shortly after the call came through that an accident occurred. He joined Outlaw's foreman in performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Although paramedics arrived quickly, their attempts to revive Outlaw were unsuccessful.
Canyon Lake Fire/EMS Capt. Danny Ray said, "…it became apparent that the injuries were of a nature that wouldn't sustain life no matter what we did."
Sandy Smith is the former content director of EHS Today, and is currently the EHSQ content & community lead at Intelex Technologies Inc. She has written about occupational safety and health and environmental issues since 1990.
