Ohio River boatyard worker killed on the job

An Indiana man killed this month was the third worker death in the past 16 months at an Indiana boatyard.

Steve Duncan, 54, of Pekin, Ind. died at about 6:45 a.m. Aug. 19 while repairing a machine called a “buggy” used in the transport and support of barges.

The accident occurred at Jeffboat, which is the largest inland shipbuilder in the U.S. according to Wikipedia, located in Jeffersonville, Ind. along the Ohio River.

Duncan was killed by blunt-force trauma and asphyxiation when the buggy activated, lifted him by a hydraulic jack and then crushed him against a barge, said Clark County Coroner Edwin Coots.

Two workers fell to their deaths within a week of each other at Jeffboat in May, 2010.

Afterward, OSHA conducted safety inspections and discovered 31 violations, 20 of them serious and two of them repeats, and issued $53,155 in fines.

Jeffboat was purchased in December, 2010 from American Commercial Lines by Platinum Equity, a private investment company.

Source: Courier-Journal