Park Hills man dies in sawmill accident

By PAULA BARR\Daily Journal Staff Writer

A Park Hills man was killed Thursday in a freak sawmill accident in Washington County.

Washington County deputies were not available to discuss the incident Friday morning.

According to Washington County Coroner Brian DeClue, Jose Garcia, 29, climbed into an edger at H & H Lumber to clear a piece of wood sometime between 8:30 a.m. and 8:45 a.m. Other workers shouted at him not to go under the machinery, but Garcia, who did not speak English, did not stop.

Although the edger had been shut off, the blades were still moving and may have caught Garcia's sweatshirt hood and pulled him in to the machinery, DeClue said. The blades severely lacerated Garcia's head. His brother held him until an ambulance arrived and took Garcia to the Washington County Memorial Hospital. He was pronounced dead at 9:25 a.m. at the hospital.

DeClue said that once logs are cut into boards, they drop onto a conveyor belt to be planed and edged. The edger has 6-8 blades, each of which is 18 inches in diameter. There is a trough under the edger to allow workers to clear out sawdust or climb up into the edger from below to change the blades. There was no guard on the bottom of the edger, DeClue said.

Garcia apparently crawled into the trough, then climbed up into the bottom of the edger to clear the wood.

DeClue said that owner Chris Harbison said he holds safety meetings weekly for his employees. Garcia had worked there about four months.

Although Garcia showed Harbison a social security card and a “green” card showing he was in the county legally, those items might have been fake, DeClue said.

“Chris thought he was legal, but (Garcia's) girlfriend said he was not,” DeClue said.

INS officials in St. Louis did not return a phone message by press time.

DeClue has ruled the death accidental and released Garcia's body to a local funeral home. His body will be sent home to Mexico, DeClue said.

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