ST. GEORGE – Less than one month after a serious injury occurred to an employee of St. George Steel another employee injury, resulting in hospitalization, has occurred today.
Norbert Kretschmer, Human Resources Safety Director for St. George Steel* had just returned from Dixie Regional Medical Center where he had visited the injured employee’s wife when St. George News contacted him.
“I haven’t had time to investigate it yet,” said Kretschmer. “It was not on a crane [as was the case with Joshua St. John injured while at work there on Sept. 29]. They were moving what they call a ring, the ring moved in a manner they didn’t anticipate and it slid a little on the floor, I don’t even know exactly how that happened, to be honest with you … I just got back from the hospital and seeing his wife, I don’t have the facts, I have to get the safety committee together, we have a safety committee.”
A ring is like a chunk of a chimney, Kretschmer explained. “You’ll have several pieces stacked on top of each other smaller and smaller in dimensions as it goes up – moving a ring and that’s the term they use.”
The injured employee was transported by ambulance to DRMC as a precautionary measure.
“Because it was a broken leg and because there’s no way to transport a person with a broken leg without possibly causing more damage than harm, or good I could say,” they had the injured employee transported.
As reported by St. George News on Sept. 29 and following, Joshua St. John suffered injury from a crane accident at St. George Steel.
“Believe it or not [that incident] is still open and under investigation by Oklahoma, our mother office, they have an investigating team, [also] by CNA our workmen’s compensation company, … they haven’t actually come to a conclusion a to what caused that [the St. John incident] – some think it was human error, some think it was the equipment, we’ve had people investigating, we try not to jump the gun as to it happened because of this or that,” said Kretschmer. “They had a meeting today,” he added. “Trust me many people are involved to determine why exactly it happened because we don’t want it to happen again.”
* St. George Steel is the business name carried on by Express Metals Fabricators, St. George Division, since its acquisition of the former St. George Steel in 2005.
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