Five injured in accident at Gallatin plant, USA
06 June 2011
Five workers at the plant, which makes an iron powder used in a variety of metal alloys mostly to make auto parts, were injured last Friday, three critically and are at Vanderbilt Medical Center. The two others were treated and released from a Sumner County hospital.
Gallatin Fire Department Assistant Chief Tom Dale said that the morning fire at the Hoeganaes plant was not an explosion but an industrial gas accident unlike the Jan. 31 flash fire that killed two workers. Five workers at the plant, which makes an iron powder used in a variety of metal alloys mostly to make auto parts, were injured, three critically and are at Vanderbilt Medical Center. The two others were treated and released from a Sumner County hospital. Dale said that there was a small gas leak and a gas cloud was ignited. "It was not the powder that was involved; it was a totally different situation,'' Dale said at an afternoon press conference at the Gallatin Fire Department headquarters. Mike Mattingly, vice president of human relations for the corporation, said the plant will be shutdown until Tuesday. "The company is devastated; it's in mourning,'' he said. The fire came one day after the funeral of 32-year old Lebanon resident Vernon Wayne Corley, who died at Vanderbilt Saturday, May 21 from complications of his injuries in the January fire. Corley left behind a wife and four young children. Mattingly was at the press conference in Gallatin because he had attended Corley's funeral Thursday. A team of four representatives from the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board are due to conduct their own probe, the agency said. The U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration will not participate in the investigation, a spokesman said from OSHA’s regional offices in Atlanta.
Contact Details and Archive...