OSHA cites surveyor, dairy farm in deaths

By MICHAEL A. SCARCELLA

MANATEE COUNTY -- A Naples-based surveying company was ordered this week to pay a $12,600 fine for workplace violations because a worker was electrocuted last year while clearing brush.

Joseph Obryan died in September on Moccasin Wallow Road after he cut bamboo that fell on a power line, Manatee County sheriff's deputies said.

Co-workers said they heard Obryan yell after the tree fell, causing sparks. Obryan tensed up. Another worker tried to move the tree and got zapped, authorities said.

WilsonMiller, the surveying firm, failed to train its employees in safety practices for cutting brush near energized power lines, according to federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration reports released this week.

Obryan, federal investigators said, was unqualified to work near the lines. He had worked for WilsonMiller for only three weeks, but had previous experience as a surveyor, a company official told the Herald-Tribune in September.

Calls to WilsonMiller for comment Thursday were not returned. It was not immediately known whether the company, which has offices in Tampa, Sarasota and Port Charlotte, will contest the fine.

Obryan's workplace death came just four months after a man was killed at a dairy farm in East Manatee.

OSHA officials also announced this week that Jerry Dakin Dairy would be fined $6,300 for failing to implement operating safety procedures for servicing and maintaining equipment.

Javier Luis Mendoza, 21, was killed in May at Jerry Dakin Dairy, 30700 block Betts Road, after he became pinned by a Bobcat front-end loader bucket.

Sheriff's deputies said Mendoza was sitting in the operating seat when he leaned through the opening of the Bobcat to switch loading instruments. He did not lock the safety bar.

Mendoza mistakenly leaned on the pedal, and the bucket pinned him against the machine.

"It was a tragic accident. It was a horrible, tragic accident," Karen Dakin said Thursday. "Nothing is more important than being safe out on the equipment, making sure you don't cut corners. It was a big eye opener."

Karen Dakin said safety is stressed now even more than it was before Mendoza's death. Newly-employed farm workers, she said, go through training sessions. Safety information labels are now printed in Spanish and English.

Federal authorities in 2005 investigated the death of a farmworker at another Dakin-owned dairy farm in East Manatee.

OSHA cited that employer, Farren Dakin Dairy, and levied a $4,900 fine for a violation tied to the death of Manatee County resident Kenneth Vaughn.

Vaughn, 38, was killed when a front-end loader he was working on fell and crushed him.